SOUTH ISLAND’S PROGRESS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25516, 9 June 1948, Page 6

SOUTH ISLAND’S PROGRESS

— “PEOPLE GETTING RAW DEAL’” MAYOR COMMENTS ON AIR FACILITIES “We are getting very restive in the South -Island about the raw deal we are getting/’ said the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr E. H. Andrews), commenting yesterday on the authorities’ reiusal to allow a Catalina flying-boat, bringing a hospital patient from the Chatham Islands, to land on Lyttelton Harbour, and on the reported decision to inaugurate a flying-boat service between Sydney and Evans Bay, Wellington. “It is no wonder,” continued Mr Andrews, “that people come to me wanting autonomous government for the South Island. The delay over the declaration of Harewood as an “international airport is not the only thing on which we are getting a raw deal. We have been promised a tunnel road from Lyttelton to Christchurch for years, but it is a job to get even the surveys done, let alone the actual start of construction. Yet we find the Government has given first priority to the Rimutaka tunnel. “We do not want to stop the progress of the North Island, and on occasions we have supported Nort’h Island requests for public projects. But we in the South Island want a fair share of the country’s progress, and we are not getting it now. The South Island strongly supported the claims of Rongotai for new airport facilities, and those claims have now been recognised. When it is something we want for the South Island, it is another question. I am always ready for a fight, and we in the South Island are going to fight for our progress.” Mr Andrews said -he could see no reason why the Catalina from the Chathams could not have landed at Lyttelton. Big flying-boats had landed with perfect safety on the harbour in the past. The captain of the Centaurus (Captain J. W. Burgess) had said he experienced no difficulties in landing when the flying-boat visited Lyttelton 10 years ago. If the Catalina had been able to land at Waitangi, when the sea was so rough that a small boat could not be put out from the shore, no objection could be raised to its landing at Lyttelton. On the question of the Harewood airport. Mr Andrews said the supporters of its declaration for international flights were more determined than ever to see the project through. At present they were merely being sidetracked. Other countries were jettisoning flying-boats as quickly as they could, and New Zealand was getting their “left-offs.” New Zealand was incurring heavy expenditure on flyingboats with no possibility of getting adequate payloads for them. It was almost impossible to make flying-boats pay under modern conditions; they were slower than landplanes, took many fewer passengers, and were entirely antiquated. If Skymasters of Australian National Airways were allowed to run a service to Harewood from Australia, said Mr Andrews, the fares for the Tasman crossing would be greatly reduced, and‘there would be a considerable saving in time to South Island passengers. Officers ©f the Lyttelton Harbou; Board said yesterday that they had not been consulted about the possibility of landing the Catalina at Lyttelton. The chairman (Mr C. W. Tyler) said the board would have given every assistance.