The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, JUNE 19th, 1923. BRITISH AIR POWER.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, JUNE 19th, 1923. BRITISH AIR POWER.

In emphasising the necessity of a strong j air defence, Sir Samuel llonro .51. P., in the fours© of an address to the Constitutional Club at London recently 1 in advancing reasons for a national | air policy, urged that it was one cf , the basic conditions of Imperial dei fence. The Royal Air Force as comi pared with the two older services was 1 a small service. There were about | 80,000 officers and men in it. The Air , Service was about a fifth of the strength of the regular Army, and 1 about a third of the strength of the I Royal Navy. It cost the taxpayers : about £12,000,000 a year, as compared with £58,000,000 spoilt on the Navy, and £52,000,000 on tile Army. He was by nature an economist, and he would welcome advice from any quarter that could show him where he could cutdown unnecessary expenditure. At the same time, there wore certain criticisms which were urged against the expenditure upon the Air Force that seemed both unreasonable and unprofitable. Ho instanced the allegation that the French Government were spending less on a milch bigger air force than we were proportionately on ours. The reason for this, lie said, was that the French figure excluded a large amount carried under the heading of the French Army. Further. the French Government, by menus of conscription had at their disposal all the skilled experience of their industrial resources, whereas here we had either to go into the open market and offer wages that would compete with the wages given to skilled labour in industry outside, or wo had to take recruits as boys and train them fer three years at great expense of time and money. That in itself showed that there was very little real basis for reasonable comparison between the amount of money we spent and the amount France was spending. Coming to the more important question of the duties wo expected the Air Force to perform, he placed them in throe categories, but not- in order of importance. He would take first the duties British air power was at present performing loyond the seas; next, its duties with the Navy and the Army, and, lastly, the most important duty of home defence. Tlio Air Force was sent to the Near East because wo wished to carry out a programme of financial economy. It was found, and figures Imre witness to the truth of his statement, that., whilst it needed a voiy large number of infantry battalions cavalry and artillery to police countries in the Near East, the partial substitution of the air arm could at once reduce the expenditure by many millions. Tt was, therefore, a fact- that the Royal Air Force to-day was in the Near East principally upon tho ground of financial economy; and, if the Government decided to withdraw our squadrons to the British Isles, and assuming that British influence was still for a time going to continue in Mesopotamia and Palestine, they would ho faced with the necessity of sending hack to garrison those provinces large numbers of infantry and cavalry, the expense of which would be far greater than the expenditure that was now taking place. Whatever might lie their views as to the future of British influence in the Near East, ho thought- they would agree it was an interesting experiment to see how far wo could control diitant parts of the Empire with a few aeroplanes rather than with large armies of infantry. On the question of cooperating with the two older Services—the Army and the Navy—lie came at once upon rather more controversial ground for, unfortunately, upon that side of air activities there had been for some time in progress a controversy for which he might say in passing, he was in no wav responsible. There were two conceptions of Air Force. The first was that Force was a primary and an independent army, with its strategy and. its own training —just as definite a profession as the Navy or the Army. The second conception was that the Air Force was merely an auxiliary weapon of the two cider" Services. If they agreed with that they would be driven to the conclusion that it ought not to be staffed and administered by a separate Air Ministry, hut ought to be an in-

tegral part of the tv.o other services. There was now sitting a Sub-Commit-tee of the Committee of Imperial Defence considering this very problem in connection with the whole problem of Imperial defence, and he would therefore only say that whatever might fie the recommendations submitted ho hoped the result would not mean the disruption of tho three Services into three distinct directions, hut the further welding together of all three. He had not been connected with one of tile great Services for a long time, but he had been connected with it long enough to see that all the great problems of -\ational and Imperial defence could only be solved by a common defensive policy in which all three Services were equally united. He wanted the Air Force to understand better the ease of the Navy, and the case of the Army, just ns he wished to see the Navy and tho Army understand better tho problems and difficulties of the Air Force. If that eatno about, as tie believed it would, from the inquiry, lio thought they as Conservatives might congratulate themselves upon the fact that the consideration of tho problem was ono of the first acts of the present. Prime Minister.