THE NEW AIR SQUADRONS.

The Government has decided to adopt the scheme of the Air Ministry, which will provide 500 aeroplanes for home defence at an increased annual cost of approximately £2,000,000, and the work of constructing these machines will be put in hand with as little delay as possible. That is the purport of the announcement which was made in the House of Commons yesterday by the Prime Minister, and it will be received with approval by the country at large. What steps may be taken to expand the air resources available overseas or for the service of the Navy is a matter quite apart, which raises the problems associated with the defence of Mesopotamia and Palestine.

The initial stage of every scheme of defence must be to make the homeland, which is the nerve-centre of the British Empire, as safe as may be. That is apparently the view taken by the Committee of Imperial Defence which has been reviewing the whole situation during the past few weeks, and it has now been endorsed by the Cabinet. This year’s estimates of the Air Ministry were cut down under an insistent demand for economy, but it has since been realised that a degree of parsimony which leaves the heart of such a vast confederation as the British Empire, with its delicate economic fabric, exposed to sudden and successful attack, may prove the grossest extravagance. A very large air force could be mobilised in an emergency at present from machines built in the last year of the war, and since reconditioned; but aeroplanes go rapidly out of date, and it was urgent that some better provision should be made for the future.

The action of the Government carries with it the admission that we are faced with a new problem, or, rather, with an old problem in a new setting. The advent of the aeroplane and the airship does not mean that the old danger of invasion by sea no longer exists, but it does mean that to the old peril a new one has been added. We possess a certain number of air squadrons, but they are not sufficient to enable a reasonable measure of security to be guaranteed by the Air Ministry. That is the meaning of the announcement which was made yesterday by the Prime Minister. He has studied, in association with other Ministers and the highest experts of the fighting services, the position of this country in relation to air attack. He is no militarist, as his past career has shown, but he and the other members of the Government, striving to practise a policy of rigid economy, have been forced to agree to an expansion of our air forces which will cost about £2,000,000 a year.

That decision is not to be treated lightly. It represents a policy which will, we are convinced, be generally endorsed. Even out-and-out Pacifists have no liking for a repetition of the experiences which came to us in the early period of the Great War, when we were humiliated by our unpreparedness to repel the invasions of German aeroplanes and airships. Since that time aviation has made remarkable progress, and the movement still continues. He would be a rash man who would rule out any air development as beyond achievement in the future. We are living in a new age, and we are counselled by the air evolution of the past few years, as well as by the promise which the future apparently holds, to pursue research with intelligent energy and to see that our resources for home defence do not fall below the minimum limit of security. That we apprehend is the view taken by his Majesty’s government. It is a fortunate fact that London is already ringed round with aerodromes, which can presumably be utilised for such of the new air squadrons as may be allotted to the defence of the metropolis. They constitute a legacy of the war. Others of our great cities also have aerodromes available, so we trust that little money need be spent on bricks and mortar. Of all forms of expenditure, as our history records – from Palmerston’s Martello towers down to the follies of the closing years of last century – that is the least profitable channel into which the taxpayers’ resources can be poured. The Air Ministry is under suspicion, as it is, of devoting a good deal too large a proportion of the sums voted to it to the construction and equipment of new buildings of one kind and another, instead of utilising those already in existence. That is a wasteful development that needs to be watched with the utmost vigilance.

The decision to strengthen the home air defences should prove a blessing to many skilled and unskilled men and women who are now unemployed. Aircraft factories, as well as the engineering establishments from which the engines will be ordered, will soon be busy once more. Incidentally, the Government’s decision will prevent firms from going out of business, and we shall retain powers of expansion of our Air Faroe which there was a danger that we might lose. Where is the £2,000,000 which is to be spent on these new air squadrons to come from? Mr. Lloyd George has stated that £900,000 of this sum will be found in the Estimates of the Air Ministry. What of the balance? It has been suggested in same quarters that the additional money required by the Air Ministry should be taken from the sum already voted to the Admiralty, and that, in particular, the idea of building the two capital ships, as agreed to by the House of Commons last spring, should be abandoned. On that issue it is understood that the whole Board of Admiralty is united. It has been directed to maintain a One-power Standard Fleet – in place, let it be recalled, of a Two-power Standard Fleet – and below that level of strength it cannot be urged to go unless the Government abandons its declared naval policy, reaffirmed at the Washington Conference. Even if that action were taken, it would yet have to be discovered if any Board of Admiralty could be formed to carry into effect a policy which is opposed by all responsible naval opinion. On the other hand, need the hope be abandoned that economies on all the fighting services, including the Royal Air Force itself, can be effected by a judicious process of paring down? Efficiency and economy are good bed fellows. As a consequence of the war – and extravagance is the inevitable child of war – false ideas in administration still persist in Whitehall. Our armament bill for the current financial year amounts to upwards of £138,000,000, the Navy taking £64,884,000, the Army £62,300,000, and the Air Force £10,895,000. It ought not to be impossible to secure such economics in that large aggregate sum, without dropping the two capital ships, as will completely cover the new commitment of the Air Ministry to which the Government has agreed. That is the course which will commend itself to taxpayers generally, already heavily burdened, and, if the Government insists upon it, public support will assuredly not be lacking.