14 
LAND & WA T E R 
April 20, 1 916 
be that tlie training of pilots and obser\-ers and the supply 
of aeroplanes, likewise the supply of counter-aircraft, 
artillery and the training of gunners, should be carried 
out under the authority of an Air Minister who would 
decide after discussion with the Services what motors, 
machines, guns, etc., should be adopted, what quantities 
should be provided, from what sources they should be 
obtained, and in addition to this, how the personnel 
should be recruited, how and where trained, etc., and the 
said Ministry sliould be responsible for supplying to both 
Army and Navy its section or share of .the national Air 
Service " ready made." 
Output and Demands 
When considering a suggestion of this kind it is not 
possible to condemn the whole scheme out of liand on 
any broad or fundamental principle. There have been 
and are so many things which are to a certain extent 
anomalous both in the recruiting and training of our 
Annies and in the control and suj)ply of material, and 
such anomalous arrangements have been in the past 
successful to a greater or lesser degree. It is thus not 
jwssible to condemn a new scheme out of hand however 
unlikely or anomalous it may appear at the outset. 
It would be useless to discuss any scheme at the present 
time on too broad a basis ; the country is at war, and the 
war conditions which obtain are admittedly abnormal. 
M'lien we talk of the supply of material we ha\e innnedi- 
ately to visuahsc the difticulties with which the supplies 
of material of all kinds are at present surrounded. The 
conditions are detinitely those of a shortage, and when- 
ever augmented supplies of one kind are deemed necessary 
the question immediately arises as to what other kinds of 
supplies or munitions may be curtailed. Thus the supply 
of counter-aiicraft guns could be augmented considerably 
at very short notice at the expense of artillery of other 
kinds, or looking at the matter from another standpoint, 
a given increased demand for counter-aircraft artillery 
could be mebil the possible increase in the output of other 
kinds of artillery is moderated. Under the conditions 
of a constantly growing output from our arms and munition 
factories it is rather a matter of in which direction must 
the growth of output be directed than a definite curtail- 
ment of one kind or another. The ultimate limit of the 
sum and total will be the number of men or hands and 
the output per man . 
We have already a Ministry of Munitions controlling a 
large proportion of the output of the country', in fact 
with a few exceptions the whole of the mihtary require- 
ments in the direction of arms and munitions are imder 
the control of the said Ministry. We have the Navy 
acting independently of the Ministry of Munitions mainly 
through firms whose output has been in the past devoted 
}nainly to Navy requirements. As already stated the 
reason the Naval supplies have not come under the control 
of the Ministry of Munitions is rather a matter of ex- 
pediency than logic. In brief the division of responsi- 
bility is the best practicable solution available at the 
moment. When at any point the Admiralty and Muni- 
tions requirements clash, as where firms are doing work 
for both, or where a given article is required by both, 
the matter is one of arrangement, and the most usual 
solution is that the output of certain firms is allotted 
to meet the naval needs. 
We hear the outcry that often the Army pays 
one price for an article and the Navy another ; to the 
layman, this soimds perhaps absurd and as betokening 
gross mismanagement. Sometimes this may be so. To 
the man who has any experience of manufacture, however, 
it is often (juite clear that so-called scandals of this kind 
have no real foundation ; all linns are not equally well laid 
out forjthe same job, and what in one factory may cost £100 
may cost in another factory half as much again without 
any blame attaching to the management of the latter. 
Whatever is ! wanted by a country [at war has to 
be made with whatever tools are available, whether they 
are specially suited to the purpose or not. It is one of 
the main ftmctions of the Ministry of Munitions to adjust 
and regulate the various demands to suit the admitted 
relative importance of the supplies concerned. The 
whole " Munitions Machine" is an improvised makeshift ; 
it does its best. 
The proposition for the amalgamation of the Air 
Services, which I am now criticisin.c:. amounts in the 
matter of material to the substitution of a fourth party, 
a Ministry of the Air who will take the responsibility 
of providing for both ArJkiy and Navy so far as aero- 
nautics in the Services is concerned, and in tliis respect the 
proposed Air Ministry would act as a special Munitions 
Ministry as concerning aircraft and material, and would 
compete in turn with the three existing competitors, the 
Admiralty, the War Office and the Ministry of Munitions 
for the nation's output. So far as this aspect of the 
question is concerned, 1 think that for the duration of 
the war at least it would be preferable to end the 
anomalous position of the present supplies of aeronautical 
material by placing same under the control of the Ministry 
of Munitions as at present instituted, possibly as a sub- 
department. This would tend to reduce the present 
competition rather than increase it. Further it would 
simplify matters, inasmuch as the Ministry of Munitions 
has been set up to keep the Army supplied, and the War 
Office is the only capable and competent authority to 
decide whether it is most in want of high explosive 
shells, or field artillery, or howitzer batteries, counter-air- 
craft artillery, mechanical transport, aeroplanes, etc.. etc. 
In my opinion to create another authority to enter 
into cornpetition for the supply of material with those 
which exist, to divide the responsibility of the Navy as 
to its supplies of aeronautical material, and to single out 
and separate a particular class of munition for a kind of 
parish-pump treatment has nothing to commend it and 
may lead to serious deadlock or at least result in confusion. 
Again, are we so sure that the men who to-day specify 
their requirements for the Army or for the Navy are so' 
obtuse or arc so ignorant as is popularly represented ? 
They are doubtless human and therefore liable to err, but 
the ' proposed Air Ministry will also be human, and 
surely no less likely to make mistakes. 
Personnel 
There is unquestionably something which might b 
done in the direction of unifying dedgn as between the 
Services. There is doubtless much which could be done 
in the direction of ensuring that the aeronautical branches 
of our Services were making full use of each others' ex- 
perience ; I said all this myself eighteen months ago when 
writing my " Aircraft in Warfare," but it is by no means 
evident that an Air Ministry would achieve this end, or 
if it were to achieve this end it is by no means certain that 
it would not be at the expense of efficiency. 
So much from the point of view of materiel. How 
now does the air amalgamation scheme show up when we 
come to the question of personnel. To my mind here 
again difticulties are certain to be riiet with; unfortun- 
ately the point is one on which the opinion of a 
military man would have infinitely more weight than my 
own. I will only say that I am astounded to hear the 
glib way in which is suggested the training of military and 
naval men and officers by a third party, the Minister of 
the Air, who is neither military nor naval, and must in 
the first instance borrow his personnel from the Army 
on the one hand and the Navy on the other, before he 
can begin operations. 1 cannot believe that unless what 
I have called the '' greater scheme ' ' be adopted, any good 
result could come from taking the training and disciplin- 
ing of the personnel of either the Army or the Navy out 
of the hands of the proper authorities, nariiely the Army 
or Navy , themselves, and I am greatly surprised to see 
such views obtaining any kind of currency. It is not 
my view that it would be definitely impossible to carry 
out such a scheme ; 1 believe that it would be possible, 
but I think it is grotesque to imagine that the results 
would be more satisfactory, cither from the point 
of view of the Army, of the Na\y, or of the nation as a 
whole. I will jnit tlie matter in a nutshell by .-aying that 
the.\rmy understands the training of a soldier, whether 
it be cavalry, infantry or artillery ; the Navy understands 
the training of its personnel in all its existing branches ; 
there is more in the training for the Army or for the 
Navy, qua Army and Navy, than there is for the branch of 
the Service for which the training is a preparation. 
I have said that this is a point on which there arc others 
who could speak with far greater knowledge and authority 
than I possess. Doubtless there will be expressions of 
opinion on the jjoint from competent Naval or Military 
authorities before the question of service aeronautics is 
finally settled. 
