qt101' and Airship Policy
The memorial service at St. Paul's for the forty-eight victims of R101' was a ceremony of unsurpassed beauty, and nothing could have been more moving than the service when the bodies were laid in one grave at Cardington. Lord Amulree has been appointed Air Minister to succeed Lord Thomson. He has had great experience of judicial inquiries and arbitrations, and will be an admirable head of the inquiry into the loss of R101.' This is a very important task, as it may determine the future of airship policy. This is a sufficient reason for the choice of Lord Amulree, though he is seventy years old. If the inquiry proves that there are strains and stresses from the weather which lighter-than-air machines cannot be expected always to resist, there will be a clear case for suspending the present airship policy. If, on the other hand, there is a reasonable expectation of over- coming all difficulties, it may be taken for granted that the risks to life, however terrible, in the intervening period will be cheerfully accepted. What is almost indecent is that before the justification of a continued airship policy can be said to be clear, some newspapers should be publishing articles saying, in effect, that a refusal to " carry on " would be a proof that Englishmen no longer belonged to the bulldog breed.
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