WAYS OF PEACE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 161, 10 July 1945, Page 5

WAYS OF PEACE

EMPIRE AIR LINKS

Fifty Delegates At Meeting

In London N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m.. LONDON, July 9. "We believe that the orderly progress we are achieving has worldwide application and we gladly make available to other countries the same kinds of agreements that we make together, thus making the highways of the air the ways of peace and friendship for all nations," said Viscount Swinton, British Minister of Civil Aviation, in opening the Commonwealth Air Transport Council's meeting, which is being attended by 50 delegates ■ from the United Kingdom, the four Dominions, India, Newfoundland and Southern Rhodesia. Amplifying Montreal Plan Viscount Swinton said the purpose of the meeting was to amplify and develop the Commonwealth air partnership formed in Montreal last November. The council of the permanent body and the British Ministry of Civil Aviation so far had acted with the secretariat, but the meeting would decide how the secretariat was to be constituted and its function. The council's future meetings would be spread over the whole of the British Commonwealth.

The council meeting, Viscount Swinton continued, was on the eve of establishing a provisional international civil aviation organisation to which it would submit comments and suggestions on the Chicago International Conference draft annexes. Some questions were difficult and complicated, but no difficulty existed politically. They were practical matters on which all countries wanted to hammer out practical solutions. The Southern Africa Air Transport Council, which resulted from the conference in Capetown this year might be a valuable prototype for similar organisations in other parts of the Commonwealth. New Zealand. Proposal Among the subjects on the agenda for the present meeting, Viscount Swinton said, were Commonwealth co-operation in research, as raised by New Zealand and the advisability of limiting the life of aircraft as raised by Australia. Air-Commodore A. de T. Neville, of New Zealand, said New Zealand hoped that the Commonwealth would realise greater benefits of interdependence in contrast with independence, upon which emphasis had hitherto been placed. It saw no more fruitful method than the establishment of a virile aircraft industry and the development of efficient civil aviation services. New Zealand wished the council to have the widest scope for encouraging and stimulating aviation throughout the Empire. It hoped the proposals New Zealand and Australia had made in Chicago for international control would shortly be implemented throughout the Empire. New Zealand's purpose was to contribute to the best of its ability in reaching the greatest common agreement and achieving the greatest results.