Order for Committee read.

First, with reference to the events of the last 12 months. As far as events at home are concerned, I need not detain the House at any great length. The year has been, on the whole, an uneventful year, though one of steady progress. We have been going on with the task, always a very difficult task, of building up a permanent Air Force from the very beginning. At the end of the War there was no permanent Air Force in existence at all. There have been difficulties in connection with recruiting, there have been difficulties in connection with training, there have been difficulties in connection with equipment, but I hope we are gradually overcoming them. Certainly as far as recruiting goes we have found that we have got an excellent type of recruit in adequate numbers. As to the training, our various training schemes have been going ahead, and perhaps the most noticeable event in connection with training during the year has been the-opening of the Air Staff College at Andover. There is another difficulty of which I should like to remind the House in passing. I said just now that at the end of the War there was no permanent Air Force in existence at all. At the end of the War also the Air Force possessed no permanent buildings. The force, being the creation of the War, was housed exclusively in war huts and temporary buildings. One of the tasks with which we have been confronted, a task which necessarily has meant the expenditure of a good deal of money, has been to make these war huts habitable, to re-condition them and, where we could, to replace them with permanent buildings. But, as I said, I need not dwell upon this part of air administration. As far as home affairs are concerned, the year has been uneventful.

When I pass from home affairs to events abroad, there are one or two conspicuous events to which I should like to draw attention. First and foremost there is the fact that for the first time in the history, not only of this country, but of the world, we have started an independent air command. In Iraq to-day there is no longer a general officer commanding the troops, but for the first time in history there is art air officer commanding. I suggest that hon. Members should set aside their views as to whether our political policy in Iraq is wise or not, and should look with attention and sympathy at the fact that for the first time in history we have started this independent Air Command. We have not, been able, I freely admit, to make the reductions we had hoped. That has been exclusively due to the fact that we have not been able to conclude peace with Turkey, but I can assure the House that from the day peace is made with Turkey we hope to get down to the line suggested by the Cairo Conference, in which the garrison in Iraq would he eight squadrons and a very greatly reduced number of infantry troops.

Every impartial inquirer who has been to Iraq or has looked into the state of affairs without prejudice bears witness to the fact that this experiment in Air Command is working very well. We believe it is going to save a great deal of money and, perhaps more important than that, we believe it is going to mean the saving of a great many lives and a great deal of effort. Over and over again, even during the short time during which there has been this Air Command in existence, we have been able, by well directed air operations, to avoid the expense, both in men and money, which would have been entailed by ground military expeditions.

Let me give the House one or two examples of the successful experiments to which I have alluded. It has been possible to supply an armoured car column and 16 vehicles with stores, spares, petrol and rations for 17 days entirely from the air. It has been possible to evacuate 67 persons, military and civil, by air to a point 70 miles distant in the space of little more than two hours. Only the other day, two companies of an Indian regiment, amounting to over 300 men, with Lewis guns and 30,000 rounds of reserve ammunition were taken by aeroplane to a disturbed district, 65 miles distant, within 24 hours, at a time when the roads were impassable and when it would have been otherwise impossible to move troops at all. It has been possible to mark out by the longest furrow in the world, 470 miles in length, the desert route from Amman to Bagdad, and to keep a regular service of military aeroplanes carrying mails and passengers between Cairo and Bagdad.

I think hon. Members will agree that these are very interesting experiments. I think they will further agree that if the experiment of this Air Command is as satisfactory as we think it is going to be, many of the most difficult problems of Imperial communications and the policing of the distant parts of the Empire will have been solved. The problem that we are trying to solve is the problem, if I may describe it in one single sentence, of control without occupation. If we can succeed in solving that problem, the effect that it will have upon Imperial communications and -von the garrisoning of various parts of the Empire cannot be exaggerated. In a lesser degree, we are attempting to solve the same problem in Palestine, in Trans-Jordania, in Somaliland and in Aden.

In India, I speak in the presence of my Noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for India, we shall see in the future developments upon the same lines. Let me tell the House, in passing, in connection with the air in India, that all the evidence goes to show that the value of air operations is being better and better realised. The deficiencies in equipment which caused such great concern last summer are being made good. The Air Officer Commanding in India has now direct access to the Viceroy, and the headquarters of the Air Force have been moved to a point in close proximity to the headquarters of the Army. All these points go to show that in India the value of these air developments is beginning to be felt.

There is only one further field in connection with foreign operations to which I should like to draw the attention of hon. Members, and that is the operations that have taken place in the Dardanelles. There, again, the House will be glad to hear that the air units have acquitted themselves most creditably. We have the impartial testimony of General Haring-ton as to their achievements. The air units there have succeeded, among other things, in showing that, at any rate on active service, soldiers, sailors and airmen can all work harmoniously together. Let me give the House two examples.

Number 4 Squadron is a squadron allotted for co-operation with the Army. Yet 12 of its machines were erected and flown off the deck of an aircraft carrier within 53 hours of its arrival in the Dardanelles. Later on it was found expedient, with the consent of the Naval Commander-in-Chief, to detach some of the seaplanes and ship aeroplanes from their carrier ships and to place them in a shore aerodrome for co-operation with the infantry and artillery. Just as the Army unit was able to undertake naval work. so the Naval unit was able to work from land under the orders of the General Officer Commanding. As soon as peace is made with Turkey, I shall be able to give the House many more interesting details showing the success of the air arm during the Near East crisis.

I now propose to leave this part of the subject which deals with the past, and to ask the attention of hon. Members to the very important and serious question of air defence. Ever since I have been Secretary of State for Air I have been conscious of a general feeling of anxiety, both inside and outside the House, as to whether our air defence is adequate. One sees that anxiety expressed day after day in the Press, and one hears it in general conversation. In this House I have had it constantly brought to my attention by the fact that hon. Members on all sides have asked me week after week questions as to the comparison of the strength of this or that part of our air defences With the air strength of some other Power. I propose, therefore, with the approval of hon. Members, to give the facts and figures so far as I can, and to ask the help of all hon. Members, for this is not a party question, in our attempts to arrive at a sound and wise national air policy.

Before I give these facts and figures, I wish to make one overriding observation, which must be connected with every sentence I use, and with every figure I give. If I make a comparison of our strength with the French strength, no one here or in France must form the impression that for one moment I believe war even remotely possible between the two Allies. No Frenchman should certainly suspect me of any such unnatural idea. Hon. Members who were in the last Parliament may remember that throughout the whole of its duration I did as a private Member what I could to bring about a guarantee Treaty between ourselves and the French. That in itself should be sufficient to show that there has not been the remotest idea in my mind of any such disastrous contingency as hostilities between the two Allies.

I quote the French figures, not because it can be even remotely imagined that hostilities could break out between the two Allies, but because France of all the Great Powers has most fully developed its air arm. The simple fact that one of the Great Powers should attach such importance to the air arm forces the question upon us whether we, the other great European Power, are giving the British air arm sufficient support. As I wish to make the problem as concrete as possible, I give the House one or two comparisons.

In November, 1918, at the end of the War, the Royal Air Force was composed of 30,122 officers, 263,410 airmen and 3,300 service aeroplanes. To-day it is composed of 3,071 officers, 27,499 airmen and 371 first line aeroplanes, that is excluding reserve and training machines; a total of 30,000 against nearly 300,000 at the end of the War.

In the case of the French, it would be misleading to make a comparison of personnel as so large a part of it is provided in France from purely military personnel. The only accurate comparison, therefore, is one of machines. In November, 1918, the French had 3,600 service machines, to-day she has 1,260. The House, therefore, will see that, whilst our peace Air Service is only about one-tenth of our war Air Service, the French Air Service of to-day is one-third of what it was in 1918.

That is, however, not the whole story, for not less than two-thirds of the British Service machines are overseas, while three-quarters of the French machines are in France. Of our 34 Service squadrons—two of which are included in the expansion scheme of which I shall speak later—18 are in Egypt, the Mediterranean and the Near East, six in India, four allocated to naval work at home, and one to Army work at home. That leaves only five Service squadrons in Great Britain for home defence. Of these five squadrons only one is a fighter and four are bombers. I may mention that in France there are 32 fighting squadrons and 32 bombing squadrons. Moreover, in 1925, the French programme that has already been frequently discussed in the Chamber of Deputies will presumably be completed. This will mean that whilst France will have 2,180 Service machines, we shall only have 575, even when we include the 15 additional regular squadrons about which I shall say a word or two in a few minutes.

In 1922 200 machines, civil and military, were built in Great Britain, 3,300 in France.

It is on this account that I welcome the comprehensive inquiry to be held into the whole question of National and Imperial Defence. I have only been connected a very short time with one of the defence Services, but it has been long enough to show me that you cannot isolate the problems of one Service from the problems of the other. The problem must be treated as a whole. The members of the Committee of Imperial Defence will

be able, to survey the whole problem of defence, the problem of the Army, the problem of the Navy and the problem of the Air. No part of the problem can be isolated from the other parts. Particularly do I look for guidance in their deliberations with reference to the strength of the Air Force. What Imperial responsibilities is the Air Force to undertake? What is to be its relation to the other fighting Services? Is there some standard, like the one-Power standard, at which we should aim, and, if so, can we make equivalent economies in other fields of defence? Only by a comprehensive inquiry can these questions be satisfactorily answered, and only by the help of all parties in the House can we agree upon a national air policy that is neither excessive nor inadequate. But I do not want to leave the problem of air defence with a number of unanswered questions. For until we have decided upon our air standard, we have still to make the most of the resources at our disposal. So long as we have a small force, we must have nothing but the very best. We must keep it an air corps d'élite, highly trained, well equipped and capable, so far as possible, of quick expansion.

It is on that account that, judged by the test of expenditure in comparison with its size, our Air Force costs a considerable sum of money. All the more because it is a small force we have to concentrate upon such problems as the problem of training. I have been very much struck since I have been connected with the Air Ministry with the great variety and intensiveness of the training that is now being given. By our training we are doing everything that we can to bring the officers and men to the highest point of air efficiency. I wish that hon. Members would find time to visit one or two of our training establishments, for instance, Halton, where the boys are trained, or Cranwell, that is the Sandhurst of the Air Force, where the cadets are trained. They would there see for themselves the variety of the intensive training that is going on.

Then there is the problem of research, a problem that is the more urgent from the fact that, the smaller the force, the more vital is research. With the resources at our disposal we are trying to hold the balance between pure and applied research. Certainly the various organisations concerned, the Department of Supply and Research at the Air Ministry, the Aeronautical Research Committee, the National Physical Laboratory, the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, and certain of the Universities seem to be working in close co-operation. Perhaps in some future Debate I shall have an opportunity of going into greater detail on this subject. Let me only say that we are at present experimenting in particular upon control of aircraft at low speeds, the use of crude oil instead of petrol for fuel, metal construction, and the many problems connected with economy in flying. The research upon helicopters is beginning to reach the stage of full scale experiment, and I propose to advertise prizes to the amount of £50,000 for a competition in connection with this field of experiment. I am also hoping to be able to make a small grant for the encouragement of gliding.

5.0 P.M.

I come now to the question, almost equally important, of reserves. If our small force is to expand quickly the problem of reserves is obviously one of vital importance. I think hon. Members will be glad to see that for the first time in the Air Estimates we have this year a special Vote devoted to the Air Force Reserves. They will see the details set out in Vote 7 and also that during the year we hope to have an average strength on the reserve of about 500 officers and between 7,000 and 8,000 men. In this connection we are hoping to carry through a scheme for enabling officers and men of the reserve to train with a certain number of selected aviation firms. It may be necessary in the future to supplement these provisions by setting up some kind of auxiliary air force, but that is a question for the moment undecided. By these means we hope to build up in the course of the next two or three years a reserve of 1,000 officers and 12,000 men.

Lastly, there is the actual expansion that I am asking for the purposes of home defence. I am asking in these Estimates for 15 additional regular squadrons and for three additional squadrons for co-operation work with the Navy—an equivalent of 18 additional squadrons in all. As to the 15 regular squadrons, I should like freely to admit that the initiation of that part of the programme of expansion was due to my predecessor. Captain Guest, it will be remembered, obtained the approval of the late Government and the general assent of all parties in the House to this increase last summer. I am glad to say that the present Government is pushing ahead this scheme of expansion and we hope during the course of the next 12 months to have an equivalent of seven or eight of these squadrons formed. We hope further to have the whole scheme completed, if no unforeseen event occurs, during 1925. This scheme I would remind the House is roughly estimated to cost about £2,000,000 a year.

I have put before the House the principal facts as they appear to me upon the military side of British aviation. I wish to say a word or two on the other very important side of it— the side of civil aviation. I have left the question of civil aviation to the end, not because I think it unimportant or because I think it can be dissociated from the military side of the problem. I believe that civil aviation can in future be a very valuable asset to us, an asset which it is the more important to develop in view of the fact that our military Air Force, at any rate at present, is comparatively weak in comparison with the Air Force of other great Powers. Civil aviation can be a very valuable asset; but I should not like hon. Members to think that civil aviation can be a substitute for military aviation any more than the mercantile marine can be a substitute for the Navy. In point of fact, I believe that civil machines will tend to diverge in type from military machines, and however much civil aviation is likely to develop it can never provide a first line of defence necessary to meet the shock of air invasion. I wish to see civil aviation develop, not because I believe it can be a substitute for military aviation, but because I believe it can be a very valuable supplement to it. Civil aviation, like every other industry, fell upon bad times during the trade slump. The Air Ministry, struggling to bring its Estimates down to the Geddes' Committee level, had very little money except for the bare necessities of home and Imperial defence. The result has been that our expenditure on civil aviation has been restricted almost entirely to certain subsidies to air transport companies, to the provision of certain aerodromes and to a certain amount of civil aviation research.

As to aerodromes there will be a number of important questions coming up to be settled in the near future as to what kind of facilities the State ought to give to civil aviation. In the meanwhile the Air Ministry is, by international agreement, maintaining two civil Air Force ports, Lympne and Croydon, and there has recently been set up a civil aviation Advisory Board—a body to which I owe a great deal for its valuable advice—to consider the question as to whether Croydon is the most suitable aerodrome for London. The Committee reported that it has come to the conclusion that of the various aerodromes available, Croydon can be developed with less expense and probably with more success than any other. I accept the view of the Committee. Accordingly, I am including in this year's Estimates a small sum for the preliminary steps to make the necessary developments at Croydon. So much for the question of aerodromes.

I come now to what is a much more important question connected with civil aviation, the question of civil air transport and subsidies. When I took office I found in existence an arrangement under which £600,000 was to be distributed in three yearly grants to certain civil air transport companies. There were three such companies in existence, and a fourth company was coming into existence in the course of this year. I found, further, that the period of the contract would end in 12 months' time, that is, in April, 1924, and that the companies concerned were already asking, and in my view rightly asking, what the policy of the Government would be at the end of the 12 months' period. It seemed to me that the question to be decided was mainly a business question. We already had a great mass of aeronautical information on the subject. We already knew that cross-Channel services could be worked regularly and punctually We already knew, for instance, that 77 per cent. of the passengers who were carried last year, of a total of 12,300 passengers, were carried on British machines. We also knew that not a single fatal accident had occurred on any British machine to any passenger during last year. All those facts we knew. We also knew that, looked at from the national point of view, civil aviation had not succeeded as much as we had hoped. If the subsidies were regarded solely from a national point of view, £600,000 would have been spent at the end of the coming financial year, and only 18 pilots and 20 civil machines were engaged upon the work.

It seemed to me, in view of all this, that it would be well to have a short, restricted inquiry by two or three impartial business men, who would look at the question without prejudice and with no pre-conceived opinions. Accordingly, I appointed the Committee of three, that is now known as the Hambling Committee, the report of which many hon. Members have no doubt read. Whether hon. Members agree or not with the recommendations of the Committee, they will, I think, be grateful to these three fully occupied business men, who sat almost continuously from day to day through January considering this difficult question. The Committee has reported, and hon. Members will, I hope, consider seriously its recommendations. The Committee came to certain definite conclusions:

(1) That after three years of the existing system of Government subsidies civil aviation had made little or no progress.

I wish to be quite clear, and the Committee wish to be quite clear, that they make no criticism of the three existing companies which have been operating this service. These companies have been doing pioneer work, and, as the figures show, they have been fulfilling a public demand. When I say that the subsidies have not proved successful, it is the system and not the companies that are wrong. I hope that all hon. Members will accept from me the fact that I wish to make no sort of criticism against the three companies.

(2) That subsidies of some kind were necessary for a further period if civil aviation was to continue to exist.

(3) That two conditions were essential if the subsidies were to be of value to the nation:

The Committee also came to the conclusion that as things are now there is not sufficient business for a number of small competing companies, and that all that is happening under the present arrangement is that the State, that is financing in fact all the companies, is merely competing against it self. The only real competition comes from the French, heavily subsidised companies. France is spending 100,000,000 francs a year on civil aviation, and not less than 50,000,000 francs on subsidies. This competition will continue, whether the cross-Channel service is operated by one or more than one British company. It was on that account that the Committee came to the conclusion that one strong company would be better than a number of small companies. The Committee therefore recommended that the State should be prepared to give for the next 10 years a sum of not less than £1,000,000, provided that a corresponding amount is subscribed by the public.

I have taken up a great deal of the time of the House and I apologise for doing so, but before I conclude I wish to say a few sentences on the question of airships. The House will remember the history of airships since the War. In 1920 the Admiralty, in correspondence with the Air Ministry, came to the conclusion that, in view of the financial stringency of the time, it. was not possible to go on with an airship policy. I am glad to say that the question is now being reopened and is at the present moment being considered by the Committee of Imperial Defence. The Admiralty are very rightly emphasising the great value which airships may have from the point of view of long distance naval reconnaisance. The Air Ministry also thinks that airships can be made available as troop carriers and possibly, in the future, as aircraft carriers. From the commercial point of view, it may well be that airships provide the best means at the moment of starting an Imperial air route. Obviously, when the Near East is in a disturbed condition, when Turkey, for instance, and Persia are in the state in which they now are, an airship that can cover great distances without landing has advantages over the aeroplane. On that account, my own view is that, at any rate for the time being, it may be easier to develop the Imperial air route by means of airships than by means of aeroplanes. Anyhow, the two methods need not be. contradictory. It may well be that in the future one will supplement the other, but meanwhile, as I say, I very much hope, although I have put nothing into this year's Estimates for airships, that during the course of the ensuing 12 months we may be able to develop an airship policy, whether it be by means of a commercial undertaking or whether it be by a policy of military research.

I think I have covered most of the important ground, both military and civil. The House has had great patience in listening to a very long speech, and I will end by asking hon. Members, if and when they come to criticise our air policy or our air administration, to remember the very great difficulties with which we have been faced. After all, it is only 20 years since flying became a serious enterprise. It is only five years since the Air Ministry came into being. Since then we have been faced with the task of building up a post-War air service and we have been faced with the task of cutting down our expenditure as a result of the Geddes recommendations, just at the moment when we wished to develop the Service. It is not for me, nor for any member of the Air Force, to say whether or not we have succeeded. I have to ask the House to judge by the facts, by what has happened and by what may happen if we are given a chance. I ask the House not to be continually anxious to dig up the roots of this new organisation. I would ask them not to look back with regret, as people sometimes do, on conditions which have ceased to exist. I ask them to remember that this is a young service, young in the age of its officers and young in the period of its own lifetime. If hon. Men hers keep these facts in mind, and, without prejudice, judge the Air Force on the record of the past and by the results of what it will achieve in the next few years, I believe that it will stand successfully the highest standard of criticism that can be applied to the older Services or to any of the great Departments of State.