When work is done by contract it is absolutely necessary that it should be first standardised in every detail. The rigid methods of gauging and viewing which have definitely to be adopted when aeroplanes (or other implements of war) are being manufactured to Government specification and contract, render anything in the way of ambiguity or alteration during manufacture intolerable. Therefore, whatever be the relative merits or demerits of private and Government manufacture, the former can only properly be resorted to for work which has passed its experimental stage, and has been finally standardised in every detail. This involves, in the case of anything so progressive as an aeroplane, that the Government will of necessity carry the manufacture of every new design up to a certain point; we may say up to that point at which it has become, after due tests and trials, an officially accepted type. This is almost exactly the position as it has come about: the Royal Aircraft Factory is directly responsible for the initial development of every new model (with the exception of some few "proprietary" types which have been taken into service): the only difficulty at present is that the resources of the factory are not sufficient fully to cope with even this preliminary work, and, in consequence, private enterprise is being called upon to do more than ought to be the case: the standardisation is having to be effected whilst manufacture is under weigh.
In view of the present position and the enormous development which may be anticipated in the course of the next few years, it will, in the author's opinion, be necessary very greatly to strengthen and increase the establishment of the Aircraft Factory in the near future.
§ 112. Future Maintenance of British Supremacy. Continuity of Policy. The supremacy of British aircraft can only be maintained by the adoption of a thoroughly
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