Lord Montagu of Beaulieu made an interesting and moderate speech
at Brockenhurst last Saturday on the air service problem. The Government were doing their best, and he would not abuse them in general terms, but it was probably a case of "too many cooks spoiling the broth." He could not give all the reasons why Lord Derby and he had resigned, but the Committee could never have been able to achieve much under their present limited terms of reference. The executive power should not be taken from Sir Douglas Haig or Sir John Jellicoe, but they must have unitivided control of supply and administration under one Minister and one Department. Believing that aviation was going to be one of the deciding factors of the war, he was putting before the Cabinet a draft scheme for building planes and airships. According to his sources of information, Germany would have fifty airships ready by May 1st, of which thirty would be available for attacking England. We were doing a good deal, but not any- thing like enough, and we could not do enough without unified control and combination of effort and concentration.
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