LORD OF THE AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 180, 2 August 1938, Page 8

LORD OF THE AIR.

It has been an open eecret for some time past that Sir John Reith wae looking for fresh worlds to conquer; but when you get into the £8000 per annum claes a job is almost ae hard to find as it ie for an unemployed man on the dole, unless it involves a financial retrogression. Now, having put the 8.8.C. on the air, Sir John Keith is to put Imperial Airways in the air. Air ie evidently his element, jnet as organising is his prime talent. He is, perhaps, better at building up a concern than at running it. He ie, in fact, an enjrinper first and a psychologist second—a long" way second. To doal with, his subordinates at the 8.8.C. have often found him franklv intimidating. He stanJ? 0 feet 6 inchee in Wight; he has a jaw like the prow of a battleship; he has a long war scar on the side of his lean face, and piercing eyes 'beneath black, beetling brows. He ie a strange mixture of a man—a dictator with traces still of the Scottish manse from which he originated. His room at Broadcasting House is almost ae big as Mussolini's vast apartment, and on the wall near his desk ie a framed certificate received during hie boyhood for regular attendance at Sunday school.