ATTACK ON AIR MINISTRY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20931, 10 January 1938, Page 7

ATTACK ON AIR MINISTRY

ALLEGED “SABOTAGE BY INERTIA” DEMAND FOR ENERGETIC CO-OPERATION United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received January 9, 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 8. The aeronautical correspondent of “The News Chronicle” attributes to the aircraft industry a growing feeling that the Air Ministry's inefficiency and consequent hampering of production of aircraft for the expanded Air Force will soon cause a storm.

Leaders in the industry demand simplification and reorganisation of the Air Ministry’s machinery, and declare that the Air Force production programme has fallen short, while construction of new types of machines is lagging. For instance boasted fighters with a speed of three hundred miles an hour, announced in 1935, were still not built. One department may cancel another’s orders, one not aware what the other was doing. Experts describe the results of the Air Ministry’s control as sabotage by inertia, and declare that the Ministry, which is full of little departments run by men with only the power of veto, is not aware what it wants.

Rapid production is impossible unless there is a Director of Production able to give quick decisions and remove firms from the present muddle. The Air Ministry has done nothing to encourage the building of efficient commercial aeroplanes to give Britain a ranking position with foreign countries.