Things in this world have a queer way of working themselves out. A week or so ago THE AEROPLANE duly notified the fact that a scheme was on foot to rouse local patriotism, as it has been roused in France, and institute a subscription scheme in this country whereby each county or city could supply one or more aeroplanes to the Army. At that moment the writer was not permitted to make known the name of the organisers of the proposed scheme. Now, however, the said organisers have made their own announcement, and one is at liberty to make public the fact that the proprietors of Vanity Fair are fathering the scheme.

That such a piece of pure common sense and patriotism should have been brought forth by the professedly cynical, and at times even frivolous, Vanity Fair, is quite in keeping with the topsy-turvy way in which aviation is choosing to develop in this country. And, as if to increase the strangeness of things, the scheme, which has been received with approval by everyone concerned, has but one adverse critic, and that an aviation paper, which might have been expected to have given the idea unqualified sup-, port, but which chooses, instead, after approving the similar effort in France, to damn it with faint praise in this country on the plea that "while the idea is a very excellent one, and much to the credit of our contemporary, we doubt that the time is ripe for emulation in Great Britain."

Grammar apart, it is hard to see why the time is not ripe; the need for aeroplanes is greater in this country than in any other, and though, of course, the authorities would be bound, in the natural course of affairs, and in their own good time, to wake up and give us the necessary machines in the distant future, the real necessity for machines is in the present moment. If the idea of supplying machines through the rousing of local patriotism should be postponed and revived in a year or so, the time would be very considerably over-ripe. Therefore, the machines. must be acquired now, or not at all.

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It is better to praise with faint damns than damn with faint praise, and, really, the only possible criticism is that it is wrong in theory that State" should be assisted by private charity. Apparently, there is no official objection to private charity, and the patriotism of Mr. Frank McClean in lending his Short machines to the Admiralty in the past, and to the Territorial authorities more recently, have been productive of wholly excellent results, as has Mr. G. B. Cockburn's charitable action in training both naval and military officers to fly without cost to the nation.

As Mr. de Holden-Stone points out in his pithy article on the subject in Vanity Fair," the State is just our plain selves, but according to the logic of the critics of the scheme, Rowton houses, Passmore. Edwards hostels, Carnegie libraries, and all our great hospitals are equally unworthy of support, as are all institutions for human relief, except the workhouse, the jail, or the Embankment, the only institutions run by the State. Still, when the State does not do its duty, the people of the State must depend on private enterprise.

The fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada was raised by public subscription, or by private enterprise, at a time when the Royal Navy of the period was almost non-existent owing to its having been treated by the Great Elizabeth with a parsimony worthy of the British War Office. In fact, the position of the British Navy of Elizabeth's day and the Air Battalion to-day are almost analogous, except that the fleet then was not quite so vital to the country's safety as is the air corps to-day, because our army was then a better match for those of foreign countries. Let us all, therefore, do our best to make the project a success, if the promoters ultimately undertake it.

It may be that for reasons of policy, though not of politics, the high officials at the War Office cannot give the scheme their official support, but it is absolutely certain that it has their personal sympathy. And, though Vanity Fair is primarily a Conservative organ, and a high-class sixpenny weekly at that, it should surely be possible for intelligent persons of all kinds throughout the country to sink their political feelings and help in every way within their power. One might, however, suggest that if a big popular daily took the idea up in conjunction with the weekly it would be more successful still.

The scheme, for which Vanity Fair gives every credit to L'Auto, of Paris, is briefly this. It is proposed that committees shall be formed in every county, and that each committee shall organise regular subscriptions throughout its district, the sums demanded being quite small, and numbers being trusted to supply the amount, for it must be recollected that it does not take very many shillings to buy an aeroplane (about 10,000 shillings would do), especially because, if the scheme succeeds, as it deserves to do, the machines will be bought in quantities. It is provided that all machines ordered and purchased by the Selection Committee, for which nobody in the trade shall be eligible, shall conform in all respects to the requirements stated in the conditions of the forthcoming War Office trials. It is

further provided that in order to secure the best machines for the country, and for the sake of helping to build up an adequate British industry, it shall be made a condition that all machines shall be built in the United Kingdom by British labour, and by British materials throughout, no matter whence the design.

A suggestion is also made that should the War Office accept the offer, although the machines bought. will be placed absolutely at the disposal of the War Office, they should, if possible, be kept in the counties which had subscribed, and as near as possible to each county's regimental depôt or depôts, provided, of course, that there is suitable ground for an aerodrome in that district. It is pos

sible, however, that this arrangement might be open to objection for strategical reasons.

It is sincerely to be hoped that the plan will be a success; and, though there may be plenty of excellent reasons given by those at the War Office who are opposed to aviation why the gift should not be accepted, such as, for example, that there are neither pilots to fly them, nor sheds to house them, if they are presented, it is to be hoped that those in authority who are really sympathetic to aviation, and who realise its present necessity to the country, will succeed in forcing the hands of the reactionaries, and will allow local patriotism to do what official apathy has left

undone.

There is a story pertaining to the early greatness of Napoleon Bonaparte, that shortly after he had been appointed First Consul and Generalissimo of France, he came in state to a fortified place in the South, which failed to greet him with the salute of many guns which was his due. The Commandant of that place, on being haled before him, explained humbly that there were exactly twenty-one good and sufficient reasons why he had not fired the fit and proper salute, the first reason being that he had no guns. History does not record verbatim what Napoleon told the Commandant to do with his other twenty reasons, but it records elsewhere that Napoleon was a person of hasty temper and of Rabelaisian tongue, and on this occasion it leads one to suppose that his injunctions were precise and thoroughly adequate.

When Parliament re-assembles it is quite possible that awkward questions may be asked about certain matters connected with the Air Battalion, to which attention has been drawn in THE AEROPLANE and in

Mr. C. C. Turner's trenchant articles in The Observer.

Of course, Parliamentary etiquette demands that the best possible complexion shall be put on everything done by Governmental Departments, and, as in the case of the French Commandant, there are always subsidiary reasons to be found for any action by anybody, so it often happens that the official reason given for a thing done by a department is a very subsidiary reason indeed, and quite harmless, while the primary and possibly most reprehensible reason is kept carefully concealed so far as the public are

concerned.

But, fortunately, that does not mean that the authorities do not know the real reason, and that the delinquents are not duly hauled over the coals for it. It has even happened that an official has been publicly promoted for the official reason and privately cashiered for the primary reason of the same action. Just as one occasionally finds a member of Parliament, who has a talent for doing the wrong thing,