Air Estimates The Government on Tuesday indignantly rejected the Opposition's
demand for an enquiry into the military. side of the Air Ministry. The Opposition based many of its arguments on the inefficiency in the administration of civil aviation shown in the Cadman report ; on the same facts the Government based the rather unconvincing conclusion that the Air Ministry had done one job badly because all its tremendous energy was being devoted to doing another one well. In fact, the Government, in spite of the confidence it showed in the progress of Britain's rearmament in the air, hardly succeeded in removing the uneasiness which is felt on the subject, though it is true that by now the Air Ministry is in a position to fulfil its programme. But the statement that the Air Force, with between 1,5oo and 1,750 first line machines, is the equal, in quality and quantity, to that of any country in the world, is difficult to reconcile with equally confident assertions made by others that Germany has a superiority of no machines and almost double Britain's pro- ductive capacity. The Government's record in calculating Germany's air force is not a good one. And it is interesting to notice the reports of the enormous improvement in the new German Messer-Schmidt aeroplanes that hate latch, arrived in Spain. It is doubtful, however, whether, if deficiencies exist, the Air Ministry is wholly or even chiefly to blame ; it has no means of compelling private firms to whom it gives work to keep their contract-dates.
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