Help for Aviation

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21320, 13 November 1934, Page 10

Help for Aviation

The Government authorities concerned are to be congratulated on the co-operation to be given to Air Travel, Ltd., in the services it is to operate on the West Coast. " The "Press," when urging the development of aerodromes and the assistance of well-founded commercial aviation enterprises, has often suggested that action is overdue. So it is, but if the Government's aviation policy is in future to be as progressive as the report published yesterday suggests, lost time will soon be made up and no harm will have been done by the delay. Credit in the first place goes to the Defence and Public Works Departments for the way in which they arc going ahead with aerodrome construction throughout the country. The intention to accelerate this programme, mentioned by the Hon. J. G. Cobbe last week, will be extremely encouraging to all who are interested in fast transport, for until ground facilities are good, air services will be as hampered as motor services would be without adequate roads. In the past the Post and Telegraph Department has arranged for the dispatch of mails by experimental and emergency services, and in this way has gained useful first-hand knowledge of the speed and reliability of air transport. That these have been satisfactory is shown by the willingness of the department to rely only on air transport for the carriage of its mails on a 100 mile route. The carriage of mails by air without any extra mailing cost will make this a particularly interesting experiment, and one that may lead to surprising developments in other parts of the Dominion. Certainly now that it has undertaken one air mail experiment—if a definite contract with an air service over a fairly long term can be called an experiment—the Post Office can be expected to investigate other possibilities. It may try to find out, for instance, whether the cost of giving the South Island as good a connexion with overseas ships as the North Island now has could Ue met by a surcharge only high enough to sort out genuinely first-class mail matter, and not so big as to be a burden But though the co-operation of the departments mentioned is wise and encouraging, the whole-hearted-ness with which the Railway Department is to work in with the air service is even more heartening. Those who are interested in commercial aviation in the Dominion have feared that the opposition to the granting of licenses which they expected from the railways might delay the development of services very considerably, and tie to the rails a section of the travelling public which could more economically use the airway. If the action of the department in this case may be taken as a criterion those fears are unlikely to be realised. For that no one will be sorry, since to attempt to keep all travellers to the trains would benefit the country only a little in the shortest view, and would handicap it considerably in the longest. It is a matter of pride for Canterbury that a company partly owned in the province, and headed by a man whose qualities as a pilot have deserved well of it, should be establishing the first modern air passenger service in New Zealand; but the whole country can be glad that Government departments have shown that they, too, can move with the times.