AIR ESTIMATES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 108, 10 May 1933, Page 9

AIR ESTIMATES

COSTS KEPT DOWtf

SERVICE TO HUMANITY

NO/NEW WITS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 21. In presenting the Air Estimates in the House of Commons, Sir Philip SasgooHi Under-Secretary for Air, said that the effort to effect savings under every head without unduly impairing efficiency and, above all, without doing any- . thing which might react upon the safety of the flying personnel, had been unremitting. Of the success of this effort the House could judge from the figures sow before them; for the apparent rise of £26,000 in the net figure to a total of £17,426,000 actually concealed a further reduction of approximately £340,000. -. ■ : This followed on a reduction of no less than £700,000 last year, which made the achievement of additional ' •■rings in expenditure this year a gingularly difficult task. They had indeed Only been Tendered, possible by such drastic measures as the decision to close down for the time being one of the four flying training schools; and those responsible, for the administration of the Eoyal Air Force deserved great :credit for making an even larger contribution to the financial exigencies of the Exchequer this year than last, •which they had not done without grave anxiety. , , T • Bisks had had to be taken. No new Units had been formed either at Home 9t abroad during the past year, and no •rovision was made for new units m h* present Estimates. The Home Defence Force remained at a total of 42 squadrons (of which 13 were non-Begu-lar) and 10 Eegular squadrons were gtill required to complete the modest programme which was approved as long ago as 1923, and which was already several years overdue for completion. The decision to hold this ten-year-old programme in suspense for another year was practical proof of the wholehearted desire of tho Government to promote a successful issue of the deliberations of the Disarmament Conference. Pending the outcome of the Conference they were once again prepared to accept the continuance of the serious existing disparity between the "itrength of the Boyal Air Force and that of the air services of the other great nations. UMPROVOCATIVE POLICY. ' In terms of first-line strength the Boyal Air Force stood today only fifth on the list of Air Powers, although at the end of the late war we could with justice claim to take; not ■ fifth, but ■& rsfc place, -when, all the factors which ?went to make up air strength were taken into account. For in 1918 we had a larger number of trained flying personnel and a larger total number of aircraft than any other nation. The House would remember also that, while air expenditure in this country showed a substantial decline since 1925, other nations had very largely increased .' their outlay on air services over the same period. It was most earnestly to be hoped that the Disarmament Conference would at least TCsult in a satis-. factory agreement for the limitation ■and reduction of air armaments, which would remove the menace of their competitive development. ■ . The r air policy, of this country was' ... and had always been conspicuously moderate and unprovocative, and we were eager to co-operate in all.practicable measures for removing the menace of competition from the realm of possi- ■ bility. Nevertheless, while air forces existed, air power was as vital to our "great Empire as sea power, and we " could- not afford to neglect it. The measures of air disarmament which we desired to see effected were < such as •would leave civilised countries with the minimum strength of aircraft necessary to ensure, first, national safety at home, and, secondly, the maintenance of law and. order and the f protection and development of communications in backward territories overseas. For 'those latter purposes air power had finally established itself as an instrument "which, was at once humane, economical, and incomparably effective, as all the great political officers who had .had occasion to employ it over the past decade haft: borne unanimous and convincing testimony. (Hear, hear.) The final form those measures would- take must depend upon the outcome of the Disarmament Conference, whose discussions no one would wish to prejudice thy. anything said in that House. (Hear, hear.) FORCE NOT DESTRUCTIVE. ■: Concluding his speech, Sir Phifip Sassoon said that so long as air'forces existed no Government in this country could ■ disregard its responsibility for the air defence of our great urban populations—(cheers)—or do otherwise than :maintain the Koyal Air Force at a strength which would enable it to discharge its vital responsibilities. Oversea an Air Force was essential to an Empire like ours, charged with the trusteeship of territories still in the early stages of development; without .'the police work of the Koyal Air Force and its power to maintain law and order humanely, effectively, and cheaply, there would before long be widespread Tapine and bloodshed over large areas of the world's surface. He asked the House, in justice to the great service with \rtrich he was proud to be associated, to bear this aspect of a difficult subject constantly in mind. It was the more important that the credit or constructive side of the work of the Boyal Air Force should not be overlooked at a time when, for obvious reasons, there was a tendency to concentrate more on the debit or destructive . side of its potential activities. The 586 men, women, and children of eleven different nationalities evacuated _ from Kabul amid the snows of winter did not look upon the Boyal Air Force as a destroyer—(cheers)—but as a saviour in a desperate emergency in which the other sejvices were, owing tft the barTiers of time and space, powerless to assist. The pastoral tribes of Southern Irak, threatened with massacre at the hands of wild bands of fanatical desert tribesmen, who.'regarded it as a passport to Paradise that they should have extirpated with overy circumstanco of brutality all those who did not adhere to their particular advanced brand of religion, irrespective of ago and sex, equally, regarded the Koyal Air Force as their one protector—(cheers)—under the shadow of whose wings they could freely pursue their peaceful avocations. The same was true of the tribes of the Aden Protectorate, liberated by tho Boyal Air Force after many years from the tyranny of the troops of the Imam of the Yemen, who had wrested their lands from them by force and reduced them to slavery. This ability to. bring succour to the oppressed, to protect the weak, and repel the aggressor, was a quality which had made a deep and abiding impresion on all those who had been privileged to see something of. the activities of the Eoyal Air Force, oversea; and he :was sure that hon. members would understand the legitimate pride which the members of -the Service took in this .all-important aspect of their daily work. (Cheers.)