BRITAIN'S AIR DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 63, 14 March 1924, Page 5

BRITAIN'S AIR DEFENCE.

AN AMAZING DISCLOSURE. ! BURNEY SCHEME DOOMED. (Received 1.30 p.m.) LONDON", March 13. "The Burney airship scheme is dead and done for. Mr. W. Leach, UnderSecretary for the Air Ministry, killed it at one tragic moment when he foolishly to-day criminally disclosed to the House of Commons a single fact from the Committee of Imperial Defence's secret report that Mr. Hoare (then Air Minister) wrote therein that the Government knew subsidies were never repaid." Thus commented a highly placed aeronautical authority, adding: "There is no use trying to explain to countries like France. Germany. Italy, and America what Mr. Hoare meant; they know he expressed the Government's willingness to embark on the Burney scheme be- ! cause it would provide the country with a peaceful equipment, convertible at a moment's notice into the most destructive weapon of war. No nation could protest against Great Britain subsidising a fleet of airships to be run on commercial lines, but it is a different matter altogether offering a subsidy knowing well before hand, as Mr. Hoare inferred, that the money would virtually lie voted for militarist purposes. The scheme henceforth will be branded throughout the world as a militarist scheme. This disclosure places a line weapon in the. hands of our enemies, and they will not fail to use it. There is no saying where Mr. Leach's inexperience will carry him and the nation. His resignation is expected. A child should know that the Defence Committee's records are more secret than those of the Cabinet, or even the confessional. Besides, there is a suspicion that hfc is easily influenced. He apparently fell in the first moment he was in office to the wiles of 'heavier than air' cranks."— ("Sun.'')