Brigadier-General Groves has contributed some admirable articles to the Times
on Air Power. There seems to be nothing to be said for the Government's policy. And yet it is terribly easy to understand how it has been adopted. The alarm and agitation which had arisen during the last six months at our absolute defencelessness in the air began towards the end of the Session to exercise direct pressure on the Government. The necessity of an active policy became absolutely overwhelming. And yet the difficulty of the Government was a very real one. Were their desperate efforts to economize on everything but their own Bureaucracy to be frustrated by new and enormous expenditure on a " Service " ? It was calculated that to create an Air Force on our traditional Naval one-power basis would soon entail an annual estimate of 100 millions a year. Obviously the Government could not face the economy campaign with such a proposal. Hence, inevitably, they compromised, and we are to have twenty new squadrons at an additional cost of £2,000,000 a year. This will give us in all thirty-two squadrons with which to face the French establishment of 220 squadrons. Could two millions of taxpayers' money con- ceivably be spent more futilely ? Thirty-two squadrons are not an appreciably greater protection against 220 than are twelve. It is a perfect example of the uselessness of an ignorant and ill-advised administration being kicked into niggardly action by a well-founded, but necessarily ill-informed agitation.
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