17 OCTOBER 1941, Page 4

end their engagement. a b The question of pipe-smoking in

public by officers of the p R.A.F.—on which I permitted myself some observations a fortnight ago—has now engaged the attention of the House of fc Commons, and Captain Balfour, the Under-Secretary for Air, a has stated that the practice " though generally discouraged" ri is not the subject of any general regulation, with the suggestion that it is a matter of taste and that pipe-smoking is an untidy habit on which the light of day should not be shed. How far is the official passion for tidiness to be carried? Are the perverse aviators concerned to be " discouraged " for making Cologne and Bremen untidy? At the risk of being held sub- versive, I should say of this vital problem of deportment, solvatur fumando—settle it by smoking.

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