particular questions, whether undertaken by Government departments or otherwise, are not enough. To secure the necessary co-ordination we want a single advisory committee, constituted on non-party lines.

For such a committee we have a valuable precedent in the Committee of Imperial Defence. Why should not the Government follow this precedent and appoint a Committee of Imperial Reorganisation? Such a committee could map out the various subjects on which enquiry is needed, and, while giving due consideration to their interdependence, refer them singly or in groups to sub-committees, through which the best intellects and the greatest expert knowledge which the country possesses could be focussed and brought to bear on every matter which requires investigation. In some such way only can we make adequate preparation for the future, and hope to arrive at results and to devise means which may in some degree compensate our posterity for the burdens entailed upon them by the present war.

In regard to these and other matters, the Government of the country will have to put its hand to work from which it has hitherto, on principle, abstained. But laissez faire, however excellent in its way, has, like every other principle in practical politics, its limits. A nation may be under-organised, as well as over-organised. Individualism may be carried to an excess which threatens the safety of a people. A wise and courageous Government will strike the happy mean.

PARKER OF WADDINGTON.

Art. 3.-AIRCRAFT IN THE WAR.

WHEN war was declared, one of the earliest bodies to mobilise was the Royal Flying Corps. The enthusiasm and vigour characteristic of youth inspired this, our youngest force. It was making its traditions. If we were astonished at its preparedness in men and material, it was partly because no prophet has honour in his own country, and partly because our peculiar method of administering stimulus to ourselves is, unlike the German habit, to carp at what we have, and this had led us for some years past to depreciate a by no means despicable aerial position. We had come to believe in our own feebleness-an attitude only less foolish than that of expecting to be invulnerable. Both the hot and the cold wind have fluttered the newspapers a good deal of late. We seem to recall how every branch, from the Secretary of State to the expert aeronautical adviser and the constructor, has been covered with the snow of reproach; and we felt a warm glow of satisfaction when the R.F.C., on being put to the test, gave the one satisfactory answer-that of prompt performance.

Nevertheless that preparedness did not and could not in its extent exceed the limits set to it by the cheeseparing attitude previously maintained by those who controlled the purse. So far as it had been possible to provide our little army with the best of aeroplanes and their appendages-spares, engines, tents, and equipment -so far were we ready. That readiness was put to good service at once; the seedling of aerial supremacy was planted, and Sir John French's early dispatches have borne witness thereto. Our supremacy might have taken firm root had it not been for the direct and indirect effects of an untimely 'money squeeze' a year or two before the war. This 'squeeze,' which also took effect elsewhere, is not likely to be forgotten by soldiers for many a long year. Valuable aeroplane firms were crushed out of existence in their infancy. They were exposed to the Spartan rigours of acute competition invited by the contracts branch of the War Office, when the loss of an order from the only purchaser, the State, meant speedy extinction to the firm.

The increase, on the initiative of Lord Kitchener, of our Expeditionary Force from about 160,000 men to the figure stated by Mr Asquith on Feb. 15-1,600,000 men -and of the total of our armies to at least three millions, implied (though it has strangely eluded public mention in this form) the creation of a corresponding Flying Force. We have no guide to official numbers, but clearly that force required at once a tenfold, and later a twentyfold increase. Some reasons will presently be stated for supposing that the required increase should be put still higher. In any case, the demand for aircraft material must have imposed a tremendous strain somewhere-a strain rendered far more severe by the fact that it was wholly unforeseen in a country that did not plan this war. Our resources proved equal to the strain, and recent dispatches prove that we have kept our head up. They show that in the four weeks immediately prior to Jan. 24, 1916, of which we have an official record, we carried out four times as much aircraft work over the enemy's ground as he ventured on over ours. We may certainly conclude that at this date we had been neither outnumbered nor tamed.

Let us first consider the many conditions which yet further enlarged the demand for aircraft beyond mere proportionality to the augmented army. The training

of the extra personnel at the intense rate required must have acutely affected the wastage of material at the most critical time. If we had but a tenfold production of pilots, this demanded not only the preparation of the aeroplanes which should be ready in the field by the time the men were trained, but we were forced to retain in England a substantial nucleus of instructional machines just when the difficulty of sparing any from the Front was at its highest. We know that the work of the Central Flying School at Upavon was carried on with unflagging energy; that preliminary schools were either taken over or continued ceaselessly their instruction of pupils; and that these were supplemented by other schools started within the Squadrons and at Farnborough. Both policy and foresight were indicated here.

Of course no one knew or could know what would be the wastage of aeroplanes in war, still less the various rates of wastage of the different types. Yet replacements

in proportional quantities had to be and were supplied. It was not till much later that any census of casualties to aeroplanes could be got out to show, as they did show, that some constructions were much better than others in strength and ease of handling. Be it remembered that at that time many soldiers, and among them gunners of experience, thought, even after the early weeks of strife, that the gun would outclass the aeroplane and settle the question of supplies in a manner widely different from that which time has revealed. At the beginning of the war, while flying was as yet conducted at what are now considered the comparatively low heights of 4000 feet or 3000 feet, anti-aircraft shrapnel proved so effective as seriously to aggravate the call for spares and parts; but this did not alter the conviction of the constantly increasing importance of aircraft.

A little later it was the gunners themselves who most emphatically demanded additional service from aeroplanes. They began to call in the aid of the airmen on all occasions for 'spotting,' i.e. for telling them from the air by signals precisely where their shots had fallen, thus correcting their aim and making their fire many times more effective. It is to admit a certain amount of inexperience to say that this was a novel demand, but it was a rightly urgent one, from a novel quarter. It meant more pilots, more observers, and more aeroplanes. Following on this came yet further demands. Aerial photography was shortly put to good use; and, as this affords the means of analysing at leisure the minutest details of the enemy's position and noting the daily changes in his dispositions of troops, his earth-works, defences and other preparations, it is easy to see why the General Staff emphasised its demands for yet more of whatever machinery could offer such service.

Bomb-dropping is another form of activity which, delayed for a time, was largely developed subsequently, and, from the moment it was fairly started, proved so attractive that whole bevies of machines were called for. For this purpose new types had to be considered, partly because of the constantly increasing size and number of the bombs carried, and partly because of the necessity for defending the bombers. Still, good work was done and continues to be done with many of the original

machines. The low-powered machines that we began with were, before long, to be unduly loaded, and hence were exposed to more danger of fire from the ground and from the air. But, as it became clear that an effective attack on the enemy's line would always be assisted by a distribution of explosives amongst the railways and communications by which he might bring up supports to the point attacked, bombing took a definite place in military operations, and machines had to be produced and modified accordingly.

Another cause of increased demand was the unsatisfactory character of most of the landing grounds unavoidably allotted to the wings and squadrons. This gave rise to breakages of the alighting gears, and not unfrequently to wrecked aeroplanes, which had to be replaced till the sites were improved. How the alighting troubles have been overcome it is not for us to reveal, but it is common knowledge that landings are much better now than they were. Moreover, during the conveyance of aeroplanes and messengers as well as sundries to and from England and the Front by way of the air, there must have been losses; and, in the frequent transits between the Paris flying grounds and the Front, pilots have occasionally lost their way, descended to enquire, and been captured with their machines by the enemy.

In addition to these general causes, some of the earlier phases of the war necessitated great activity in aircraft production, and placed intense pressure on our initially small Headquarters Staff at home. During the retreat from Mons we suffered severe losses in aeroplanes and sundries, some of which had to be destroyed by ourselves. While rapid movements were in progress, pilots who had been for some hours up in the air were not, and could not be, aware of the exact line of demarcation between friendly and enemy country when they descended. The perfecting of an aircraft base cannot be achieved in a moment; and, though new bases were not formed with undue frequency, it was inevitable that our aeroplanes should occasionally have suffered from inadequate or imperfect housing during the storms which occurred during the autumn of 1914. One particular line squall,' which blew with exceptional violence and arose