“NEW PROGRAMME”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1938, Page 8

“NEW PROGRAMME”

BRITAIN’S AIR FORCES DEBATE IN COMMONS. EARLIER PROPOSALS QUITE OVERSHADOWED. (British Official Wireless). (Recd This Day, 11.40 a.m.) RUGBY, May 12. The House of Commons was crowded for the debate on the Air Ministry vote. Lord Winterton, who was recently appointed deputy in the House of Commons to Viscount Swinton. Air Minister, intervening in the debate at an early stage, met the Opposition’s attack on the air programme by the disclosure of what he described as a “new programme” which entirely overshadows the programme they undertook three years ago, which itself was absolutely unprecendented in peace time. Lord Winterton declared emphatically that the Royal Air Force as a whole was not behind other air forces in the up-to-dateness and newness of its machines. The existing types were satisfactory and a few types were even better. The production of engines was increasing rapidly and in this connection the “shadow scheme” fully justified itself. There was now a vast field of actual and potential production. Referring to the programmes of foreign powers,, Lord Winterton gave an assurance, framed in the light of the best estimate as to the large scale of forces which could be brought against Britain in war, that Britain’s programme was designed as a formidable deterrent against aggression and an effective defence in the event of attack. The defence of Britain must be guarded as a whole. They were carrying out rearmament on a vast scale of extensions, refitments, rebuildings and n ment in all three services at a cost approaching astonomical proportions.

INTENSE INTEREST SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS MADE.. COMPARISON WITH GERMANY. V (Recd This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, May 12. The Australian Associated Press correspondent says intense interest is centred in the air debates in the House of Commons and House of Lords but the Government’s. statement left a most uneasy feeling. All parties, even many Government supporters, expressed the opinion that the position was worse than was anticipated. The Government had an unenviable task in trying to answer a welter of criticisms and simultaneously having to avoid disclosures valuable to the enemy. Nevertheless, members felt that the Government not only answered- most criticisims but completely failed to give reassurances.

Sir H. Seely (Liberal) moving a reduction in the salary of the Air Ministry of a £lOO as a protest, said Germany at present had eight thousand aeroplanes, of which 3500 were frontline machines and will within a year have six thousand first-line machines, whereas Britain, two years hence, would have only 2700. Germany was making between five and six hundred aeroplanes monthly. Britain at the end of the war in 1918 was capable of turning out thirty thousand aeroplanes a year. Such an output was impossible today without the Ministry of Supplies. Apart from aeroplanes, every Air Force station was demanding four times the available supply of guns. The system under which we were working was a complete failure. Conferences of committees' of the sitting Air Ministry were unwieldy. No one appeared to be able to make decisions. One firm was obliged to borrow a million sterling from a bank owing to delays in getting money from the Air Ministry. Smaller firms were more greatly hampered for the same reason. Sir H. Seely declared that manufacturers had been threatened under the Official Secrets Act even with the loss of contracts if they disclosed the state of affairs. When Lord Winterton said the Royal Air Force machines compare more than favourably with those of other countries, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill interrupted with “absolutely untrue.”

The. Leader of the Opposition, Major C. R. Attlee said: “We not only have not got parity with Germany but we are getting further from parity every week. Lord Winterton’s proposals will not bring us even by 1940 to the position Germany is in today. The Royal Air Force is largely equipped with obsolete and obsolescent machines.” Lieut.-Col. Sir Russell Moor-Braba-zon and Mr W. R. D. Perkins stressed the advantage of manufacturing aircraft in the Dominions, where the works would be safe, whereas works in England could be destroyed by an enemy.

' Lord Winterton, replying, said he was impressed by the volume of opinion in favour of manufacture in the Dominions and would fully investigate the possibilities. Sir H. Seely’s motion was defeated by 229 votes to 131.