-these events took almost as long
as the war to happen; indeed the story of them might truly be called the
Constitutional History of the War in the Air. That story cannot be told
here; it shall be told at a later point, in connexion with the
foundation of the Royal Air Force. The method of government of the Royal
Flying Corps has already been described; all that can fitly be attempted
here is a brief account of the government of the Royal Naval Air
Service, and the earlier vicissitudes of that government.

The union of the two wings of the Royal Flying Corps, that is to say, of
the original Naval and Military Wings, was a one-sided and imperfect
union, because the Royal Flying Corps, in its inception, was under the
control of the War Office. The naval officers who joined the Naval Wing
remained under the control of the Admiralty, and before the war the
Admiralty had established an Air Department, with Captain Murray Sueter
as its Director, to be responsible for the development of naval
aeronautics. But the Director was less happily situated than his
military counterpart, the Director-General of Military Aeronautics at
the War Office, who, it will be remembered, dealt at first hand with the
Secretary of State for War. The Naval Director of the Air Department had
less power and less independence. From the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys,
throughout the eighteenth century, and down to the year 1832, the navy
had been administered by the office of the Lord High Admiral, assisted
by a Navy Board, which was composed, for the most part, of civilian
members of Parliament. In 1832 the Navy Board was abolished, and the
modern Board of Admiralty was created to control the navy. The business
of this Board was divided up among its various members. Finance fell to
the Parliamentary Secretary; works, buildings, contracts, and dockyard
business were the portion of the Civil Lords; while all kinds of service
business, that is to say, preparation for war, distribution of the
fleet, training, equipment, and the like, were assigned to one or other
of the Sea Lords. When the Air Department was formed to take charge of
the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, its Director was not only
generally responsible to the Board of Admiralty, he was responsible to
each of the Sea Lords in matters connected with that Sea Lord's
department. This divided responsibility, which, by old custom, works
well enough in a body with established traditions, like the navy