ce generally worked in perfect harmony during the
Great War--except in the one matter of their respective air
departments. There was a certain amount of unwholesome competition
between them over aeronautical material up to the time when one single
air department was established late in 1917.

Aeronautics do unquestionably constitute a difficulty, and a
difficulty which did not make itself apparent during the late
conflict in quite the same form as it might in future wars. The Navy
and the Army must both have air services absolutely under their
control in peace and in war; but there is also, no doubt, immense
scope for independent aeronautical establishments, kept separate from
the righting forces on the sea and on land. Three more or less
distinct air services, in fact, seem to be needed, and the question of
equitable distribution of material between them at once crops up.
Supposing all three to be administered, from the supply point of view,
by an Air Ministry, this institution may show itself disposed to look
better after its own child, the independent air service, than after
its stepchildren, the naval and military air services. Were a Minister
of Defence to be set up as overlord, he could act as impartial
referee. But this one phase of our defence problems as a whole can
surely be dealt with effectively without creating an entirely new
Ministry, for the establishment of which no other good excuse can be
put forward. The problem of preventing competition and rivalry in
respect to material between the three branches of combatant
aeronautics ought not to be an insuperable one, if firmly handled.

In this connection it may be observed that a certain confusion of
ideas appears to exist in some quarters between a Defence Ministry
co-ordinating naval, military and aeronautical questions, and an
Imperial General Staff concerning itself with the sea, the land and
the air. The two things are, and must always be, totally distinct. A
Defence Ministry would in the nature of things be an executive
institution. In the Empire as it is now constituted, an Imperial
General Staff can only be a consultative institution. A General Staff
in the ordinary meaning of the term is executive as well as
consultative; it issues orders with regard to certain matters, and it
administers certain military departments and branches. But so long as
the Empire comprises a number of self-governing Dominions and has no
common budget for defence purposes