AIR DEFENCE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 11

AIR DEFENCE

Debate In House Of Commons i QUESTION OF PARITY Fulfilment Of British Programme By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. (Received March 22, 7.35 p.m.) London,. March 21. A debate on the air estimates arose in the House of Commons when Mr. W. Wedgwood . Benn (Labour), moving a reduction in tlie personnel by 100, said the knowledge of practical flying. and engineering among the higher ranks of the Air Force did not agree with the standard Lord Trenchard laid down and did not compare with the United States, where every officer must do a minimum of 100 hours’ flying a year and also a flight of 1000 miles. Moreover, the German air force, and also the Government, was largely controlled by practical airmen.

Mr. Winston Churchill (Conservative), raising the question of parity, said the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, Sir Thomas Inskip, appeared unaware of Earl Baldwin’s statement thab the first line strength should be the criterion of parity. “It is most unsatisfactory,” he said, “that when the first line strength was deliberately adopted we were Invited to accept a new, vague standard which I believe is due to the Government’s being unable to maintain its .pledges.” The Under-Secretary for Kir, Lt. Col. A. J. Muirhead, replying, said there ' was no better standard of .parity than the practical viewpoint whether or not Britain was inferior to any country within striking distance of her. Mr.-Churchill: No. Lt. Col. Muirhead said members might demand definite figures of British and German strengths, but it would not be in the public interest to supply them. He explained that 1500 aircraft which were to have been ready in March, 1937, arrived In midsummer, but there was no guarantee that they were up-to-date. A second phase of rearmament—l7so Metropolitan up-to-date aircraft by March, 1939 —was now in operation. There’was no reason to believe the programme would not be fulfilled with machines fully, comparable with those simultaneously in the possession of other countries.

He added that the Government was continually reviewing the problem. In this connection he instanced the decision to re-examine the position in the light of events in Austria, including the point whether the .estimate of 100,000 tons of petrol was adequate for Germany in the first year of a war, which perhaps was an under-estimate. Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead added that the programme for the forthcomirfg year provided for 1368 short service officers, compared with 1190 last year. The Government also had 1000 reserve pilots. Lieut.-Commander R. L. Tufnell (Conservative) asked the Government to consider concessions regarding Australian and New Zealand pilots who joined the Air Force for five years’ training and did not receive sufficient yearly leave to journey to their homes. Accordingly they might be allowed to accumulate their leave until they had four or five months so as to make the l journey worthwhile. Mr. F. Montague (Labour) referred to Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead's inability to guarantee that the 1750 aeroplanes promised for 1939 would be up-to-date. There was a necessity for the investigation of the military of aviation, especially when the Berlin-Rome axis was hardening, dictators were making themselves invincible, and the numerous problems of the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and Czechoslovakia, required something like a Ivar mentality in production end administration. Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead promised to note Lieut.-Commander Tufnell’s suggestion .

Mr. Wedgwood Benn withdrew his motion and the House confirmed the Air Ministry’s votes.