DISCOVERY 



77 



country ? Or, he might have left tlie Colonies to 

 look after their own defence, and find out by adversit}' 

 the necessity of union for this purpose — but such a 

 course would have been contrary to British traditions 

 of Empire, and might have led to great disasters for 

 the Colonies. Or, again, he might have allowed 

 American representatives in the British Parliament. 

 An English diplomatist, at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century, was told by two successive Ameri- 

 can Presidents, Madison and Jefferson, that if this 

 had been done the Stamp Act would not have been 

 opposed ; but, as a matter of fact, neither the Colonies 

 nor the English, in 1765, wanted American represen- 

 tation in the British Parliament, and, in particular, 

 Burke ridiculed the idea owing to the distance and the 

 slowness of communications. 



Lastly, let it be remembered, in Grenville's favour, 

 that the problem of Imperial Defence, which proved 

 the grave of his reputation, has not, as a matter of 

 fact, yet been solved. As Mr. G. L. Beer says, " Modern 

 English statesmen have not solved the difficulty ; 

 they have merely cut the knot ! " Great Britain 

 has leamt wisdom from Grenville's failure. But she 

 has learnt it by bearing virtually the whole burden of 

 the naval defence of the Empire till such time as the 

 Self-governing Dominions, and other portions of the 

 British Commonwealth of Nations, voluntarily afford 

 — as they are now beginning to do — the support that 

 she needs mote and more. George Grenville, by 

 precipitancy, broke up the Empire ; the South African 

 War of 1879, and stUl more the Great War of 1914, 

 showed that Great Britain will secure, as a result 

 of her patience since his time, the support of other 

 parts of her Empire to an increasing degree. In tliis 

 sphere of statesmanship, the policy of " Wait and See " 

 has at all events been successful. 



George Grenville was, especially when judged by 

 the history of later events, certainly wrong in 1765 ; 

 but some of the criticisms that George Grenville and 

 Great Britain incurred over the Stamp Act, at the 

 hand of many of the older historians, were certainly 

 not deserved. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Of recent books the best are : G. L. Beer's British Colonial 

 Policy, 1754 — 1765 {1907) — now out of print, but it is largely 

 quoted in the Project of a Commonwealth, part i, chapter vi 

 (Macmillan Co., 1915) ; America and Britain, by Professor 

 McLaughlin (Dent, 1919) ; America and Colonial Government 

 l6g6 — 1765, by O. M. Dickerson (Clarck Co. of Cleveland, 1912) ; 

 C hanni ng's History of the United States, vol. iii (Macmillan 

 Co., 1912) ; Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth 

 Century, vol. iv — though published in the early eighties, still 

 in some respects the best balanced (Longmans) ; The Colonial 

 Period, by C. N, Andrewes (Williams and Korgate, 1912) — 

 rather hostile to England ; History, October 191S (article by 

 Professor Pollard). 



Kite Balloons and Their 

 Work 



By P. H. Sumner, A.M.I.N.A. 



Lale Stafl-Captain, Air Minisliy 



The modern kite balloon was designed by Captain 

 (now Major) Caquot, a French engineer. This replaced 

 the old German type called the Drachcn. The original 

 Caquot balloon did not entirely fulfil the hopes of the 

 small band of balloon enthusiasts, and further im- 

 provements were necessary to ensure stability in high 

 winds. Finally Captain Caquot solved the problem 

 by fitting the pecuhar large stabilisers, or tails, which 

 give the balloon a conspicuous, almost an uncanny, 

 look. The first Caquot balloon arrived in England at 

 the end of 19 15, and in the summer of 19 16 the exact 

 prototype of the present balloon made its appearance. 

 In the fittings to the balloon, and in smaller details 

 of construction, improvements have since been made ; 

 otherwise it is essentially the same to-day as then. 



The spherical balloon used for military observations 

 in the past was not suitable for use as a captive balloon 

 in high winds. This was because it drifted very 

 much, so that for a small increase in altitude a large 

 amount of cable had to be paid out. An increase 

 in our knowledge of dynamics as applied to the air 

 has made it possible for many defects to be eliminate', 

 so that the drift of a captive balloon in high winds 

 causes a deviation from the vertical position of the 

 cable of a few degrees only. -A.t the same time a 

 strong head-to-wind position may be maintained even 

 in winds of eighty knots (92 miles per hour). Spherical 

 balloons used to spin round and become unmanage- 

 able in winds as low as twenty knots. 



The spherical balloon is now used in the Service for 

 training airmen. All airship pilots and balloon ob- 

 servers are required to pass-out a course in free 

 ballooning, which includes a night flight and a solo 

 flight (i.e. the pilot is alone in the balloon). The 

 smaller spherical balloons have a capacity of 25,000 

 cubic feet ; the larger, which can carry seven persons, 

 a capacity of about 80,000 cubic feet. They are gener- 

 ally filled with coal-gas. The kite balloon, like the 

 airship, is, however, filled with hydrogen gas. The 

 envelopes of the old spherical balloons and airships were 

 made of gold-beaters' skin, but nowadays all envelopes 

 are made of cotton fabric rubbered on the inside. 

 The rubber makes the fabric gas-tight ; it also pre- 

 vents impurities in the hydrogen from deteriorating the 

 fabric. 



The modern captive balloon is often popularly, but 

 erroneously, called a " sausage." The sausage type. 



