CIVIL AVIATION

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 140, 10 March 1938, Page 11

CIVIL AVIATION

Cadman Committee’s Report BRITAIN BACKWARD Position Viewed With Extreme Disquiet By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright London, March 8. The Cadman Committee, in the course of its report on civil aviation, recalls the debate in Parliament on November 17, which, it says, revealed genuine apprehension that the country Was backward in civil air transport except in respect to Empire routes. The committee considered that there is reason for more than apprehension. “We view the position with extreme disquiet,” comments the committee. The yearly mileage flown on Imperial Airways routes in Europe is less than before the formation of the company,” continues x the committee. “There is not to-dtry a medium-sized airliner of British construction comparable with the feuding foreign types.” The Government’s reply Is that it is convinced that the policy of concentration on Empire routes has been right, and that the maintenance of those routes must be a first charge on the subsidy. The Government claims to have followed consistently a policy of developing new experimental types of civil aircraft. The commitfee understands that Imperial Airways have introduced a new scale of pay for pilots on Empire services, aud have taken other steps to remove grievances. In a debate in the House of Commons iu November, certain charges were made of inefficiency in "civil- aviation undertakings and, at the close of the debate, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Air Ministry announced on behalf of Lord Swinton, Secretary for Air, that, in fairness to both sides, a departmental inquiry would be held. The .Secretary for Air invited Lord Cadman, chairman of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, to act as chairman of a committee, the other members of which were Sir Warren Fisher (Permanent Secretary of the Treasury) and Sir William Brown (Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade).