Further, in order to co-ordinate the efforts of the Admiralty and the War Office, a permanent consultative committee, called the Air Committee, was provided for in the original scheme, and held its first meeting in July 1912. This committee was a kind of nucleus of an Air Ministry; the importance attached to it may be judged from its composition. Colonel Seely, by this time Secretary of State for War, was its first chairman, and later on Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the Second Sea Lord of the Admiralty, became its vice-chairman. The officers in command of the Central Flying School, of the Naval Wing, and of the Military Wing had seats on it. So had the Director of Military Training, the Director of the Air Department, and the Superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory. The committee proved its value as a place of conference, where those who were responsible for aerial development in its various branches might compare their ideas. But it had no executive powers, so that its success in promoting an active policy automatically diminished its own importance. It could consider and advise, but the decision rested with the Admiralty and the War Office. It was useful at an early stage; then, like the Ghost in _Hamlet_, having prompted others to action, it faded away. The need for a central controlling body, that is to say, for an Air Ministry, was soon to be acutely felt. The naval and military air forces were friends, but they were also rivals. In so far as this rivalry prompted them to compete in skill and valour, it was wholly good. But rival orders for munitions of war, and especially for aeroplanes, given to manufacturing firms by two branches of one service, are not so good. The output of the factories was not unlimited, and only a central authority could determine how that output might be best used for the nation's need. The activities of the Naval Air Service, from the time it came into being until the outbreak of war, were very largely experimental. Those who were responsible for naval operations had at first no complete, definite, and practical scheme for the employment of aircraft in naval warfare. It would have been difficult for them to produce such a scheme; opinion was fluctuating and divided, and the progress of aeronautical science supplied improved machines and opened out new possibilities every month. The time of the service was spent in demonstrating these new possibilities, rather than in organizing and training their forces for the needs of a definite programme. Nevertheless, this experimental period witnessed rapid growth and prepared the way for surprising achievements by the Naval Air Service during the war.