The truth is that, as we do not, like France,
run our finances exclusively by the anticipation of bad debts, we simply cannot afford a mobilized Air Force large enough to afford us protection, and that any money spent on the creation of one under that size is simply thrown away. But this does not mean that the Government's original policy of inertia was justified, or that the public) apprehension was anything but extremely well founded. It simply means that the only possible way of meeting the situation was to stimulate and subsidize civil aviation with every penny that could be devoted to air defence. This would have given us a flourishing instead of a dead aircraft industry, the one true training college for pilots—that of practical experience— and an active body of researchers stimulated by the knowledge that practical use would be made of any invention. We need not discuss the technical arguments that civil aircraft would be absolutely useless in war, since the Government have so convincingly shown that the country cannot possibly afford enough fighting craft to give any protection.
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