national inheritance is the dearest wish of those who covet for the air force a place beside the navy and the army. Now that the officers for the air force are being trained, as officers for the navy and the army have long been trained, at a cadet college with its own traditions, the question will solve itself. The necessity for collaboration during the war did something to unite the branches of the force. But perfect unity can be attained only by men who have lived and worked together. Men who have lived apart speak different languages. In April 1918, when the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps were united in the Royal Air Force, it was found necessary to deal with this language difficulty. The Naval Air Service and the Flying Corps used different names for the same thing. The Naval Air Service used the names they would have used aboard ship. The officers' mess they called 'the ward-room mess', and the dining-room 'the mess deck'. The cookhouse with them was the galley; rations were victuals; and kit was gear. In July 1918 an order was issued by the Air Ministry prescribing the terms to be adopted in the new force. The use of starboard and port for right and left was ordered as a concession to the sailors; and at all air stations the time of day was to be denoted, as on board ship, by the sounding of bells. In some few cases the naval and, military usages were both discarded in favour of a new term proper to the air force. Thus, non-commissioned officers and men, who are described in the navy as 'ratings' and in the army as 'other ranks', were named, in accordance with a practice which had already grown up, 'airmen'. Names are full of compliment and fantasy: 'airman' is the official name for those members of the air force who spend their time and do their work on the ground. These are not light matters. One of the strongest bonds of human sympathy is community in habits of speech. Divergences in speech are fruitful in every kind of hostility. It was a Scottish captain of the merchant marine who expressed a dislike for the French, and when called on for his reasons, replied that as a people they are ridiculous, for they call a boy a 'mousse'. The navy and the army have always been loyal comrades, ready to help each other at short notice. These relations persisted between the two branches of the air force. In the scheme for the Royal Flying Corps it had been provided that each branch of the service should be treated as a reserve to the other branch. Thus in a purely naval war the whole of the Flying Corps was to be available for the navy, and in a war that should call for no assistance from the navy (if such a war can be conceived) the whole of the corps was to be available for the army. In accordance with these ideas machines flown by naval officers played a very successful part in the army manoeuvres of 1912 and 1913.