In fine, what is needed in the present conditions, with
aircraft developing and changing with lightning rapidity, with no immediate prospect of war, and with a dominant Navy, perhaps obsolescent, but certainly not obsolete, is not a large and exorbi- tantly expensive stock of machines which will be themselves worn out and obsolete in eighteen months, but the great reservoir of knowledge, experience, skill—potential air power, which can alone be provided by British aircraft flying regularly over the air routes of Europe and the Empire. This is the policy which is pursued by Germany and, in addition to her great military establishment, by France. It will cost infinitely less than the logical conclusion of the Government's present policy, which is the result of a total lack of imagination and prevision of changed national requirements.
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