GENERAL SEELY'S RESIGNATION

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 9, 10 January 1920, Page 9

GENERAL SEELY'S RESIGNATION

EXPENSE OF DUAL CONTROL.

Major-General Seely resigned from the position of Under-Secretary for Air in order to reaffirm the necessity for the independence of the Air Ministry. Briefly, his case as stated to the House, was : Under the present arrangement Mr. Churchill holds the seals of two offices— he is Secretary of State both for War and Air. Mr. Churchill, therefore, presides over the Air Council when he can find time from his other duties. The final responsibility on all big matters is Ids. Yet General Seely was also supposed to be responsible; so there was dual control. The Admiralty was unrepresented in this arrangement, and tha interests of its Air section was bound -to be neglected.' The arrangement "doomed the . Air Ministry definitely to be a subordinate office and an annexe of the War Office." This would mean, said General Seejy,

"a waste of millions and thousands of lives," because it necessarily would entail failure to take full advantage of new inventions and also perpetual delay.

"AN ANOMALOUS POSITION "

A Parliamentary correspondent writes: "General Seely's resignation, which was not entirely unexpected, wa3 due in great measure to his firm conviction that the Air Ministry should possess independence and authority as a separate department. The last reorganisation placed him in a position which many of his friends regarded as extremely anomalous, because, tliough Chairman of the Air Board, he was responsible to the Air Minister, and it was almost inevitable that there should come a point, when he would find it impossible to undertake executive responsibility without the power to make his decisions final Members of Parliament who are interested In the Air Service are apprehensive lest occasion, should be taken to reduce still further the status of the Air Ministry, and make it merely a branch of the War Office. If the service is to be developed on successful lines it should, they contend, be independent of the other fighting services, and care should be taken especially that touch is not lost with civil aviation, which, would be a reservoir on which the State could draw in the event of another war.