FROM A PARIS WINDOW.

Auckland Star, Issue 123, 24 May 1919, Page 22

FROM A PARIS WINDOW.

(Own Correspondent.)

HANDICAPS OF LOXG-DISTAXCE FLIGHT.

The return flight from' Algiers to France by Captain Ccli anl Lieutenant Koger, must give cause for thought to those diiring pilots, who contemplate crossing the Atlantic in an aeroplane. The distance between Marseilles and -Mgiers i≤ 400 miles. About mid.vay on i the route lie the Balaeric islands. Thus j pilots have only 200 miles to fly before j finding a fixed point—a point of large j area—by which to control their course. Kuch conditions are perfect, especially as fog is rarely met !n the Mediterranean, i i"et on his return flight Captain Ccli and Jiis companion were unable to make their landfall. What, then, are »c to expect from those who attempt the Atlantic flight? Instead of 400 miles, with a large numbor of islands half-way, the pilot will have eighteen hundred miles of ocean with but one single mark to guide him. Some will say that he ■will have his compass. True, but the compass will show him his direction. It ■will not show him the drift to one side or the other. Were a ship to be sent to sea without trained navigators she ■would soon be hopelessly lost. Now, •what applies in this case will apply, but j ■with much greater force, to an aoro- | plane when once launched out of the ; waste of water, with no guiding marks, i Several accidents prove the necessity of ! some reliable method of determining at | frequent intervals, the position of an ' airship in flight. There were, lor ex- j ample, the Zeppelins that after bombing j London were lost on their way back I home—hopelessly lost as regards their ! position until they were shot down by ! the French; then they kne-.v they were ! in France. The Zeppelins were" fitted with all manner of contrivances for finding their position by wireless. L'n- I fortunately these contrivances are at- I tached to the aviens using thorn, and the wind blew the whole " bos of tricks " away together. A SCANDALOUS DEPARTMENT. A telegraph scandal, carefully suppressed by the authorities, has now been totally revealed to the French public. It is no secret that the French telegraphic service treated the public with scant courtesy during the war, delivering dispatches when and to whom it pleased, but the extent of its abuses, as elicited by the committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to investigate into State contracts during the war, will nevertheless astonish everybody. Thi3 investigation, the resuls of which are published in the "Temps," shows that the Telegraphic Control Section, of which M. Tannery was the head, and Captain Ladoux and 11. Pierre Lenoir, active members, was responsible for scandalous abuses. For instance, in the course of the investigation, M. Tannery recognised that on an average, at the Paris Telegraph Bureau, 40,000 dispatches were held back daily. The majority of them were never delivered, and the others were distributed after great delay. The dispatches which were retained were, in the main, thrown into a basket, and ■when the accumulation had become too great, they were destroyed. The Control Section never made my inquiry, and neither the senders, or those to whom the dispatches were addressed, were ever informed. It must be admitted that these telegraph authorities were no respectors of persons. Telegrams sent by, or to, foreign sovereigns, princes, and diplomatists, were treated like the dispatches of Tom. Dick, or Harry. In fact, the close attention, and all the patience of the Delegation of Foreifjn Affairs was needed to prevent the systematic holding up of these State telegram?. The Foreign Affairs Department, in support of a protest, stated that the Telegraphic Control Section, unknown to it, stopped all telegrams from Spain, jiotably those of Ambassadors in Rome and London. Telegrams also from egents of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs were stopped, particularly those from M. Bapst, Minister at Copenhagen. And the Control Section was just as ruthless in regard to the country's financial interest, for, on the occasion of the last national loan it stopped or suppressed a considerable number of Stock Exchange orders, and stopped dispatches of funds destined for the loan. And this is not the limit. The claims of the National Defence received no consideration. The report states that orders of Le Creusot and Firminy were stopped, as will as those of other factories working for war. One of the latter was obliged to close down owing to its inability to for■ward its demands in the needful time. The report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concludes as follows:—"Under its present head, the section of Telegraphic Control is an organ of confusion and disorder, which has engendered extraordinary abuses, and risked compromising the Government seriously, and hampering its general policy." As a consequence of these revelations, M. Tannery has been relieved of his functions at the Telegraphic Control. But retaining Ms post at the Cours dcs Comptes, he was appointed to the Exchange Commission by the Minister of Finance, and then sent to represent the latter in Alsace and Lorraine. The Premier has removed him from the last position. Captain Ladoux and M. Pierre Lenoir are being prosecuted on the charge of dealing with the enemy, in connection with the purchase of a Paris newspaper, with which Senator Humbert, the proprietor of the '"Journal," is also the subject of prosecution. All these last three ex-Deputies are '"resting"' in the Sante prison. This pretty scandal comes as a sorry satisfaction to the newspapers, whose disputes were so often held up. lost, or delivered to their rivals without the slightest excuse or apology.