BRITAIN’S AIR PLAN

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 22, 20 October 1944, Page 5

BRITAIN’S AIR PLAN

Reported Opposition Of Big Powers (Received October 19, 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 19. The Washington correspondent of the “Herald Tribune” understands that the United States, China and Russia will combine at the Chicago international aviation conference opposing flatly the adoption of the British proposal for the establishment of a world authority exercising full jurisdiction over international air commerce. The United States’ attitude has been anticipated, but the addition of China and Russia to the opposition en bloc would appear to kill any chance of the adoption of the plan. The British proposal is expected to have the full backing of the Commonwealth Governments. The United States, China and Russia will probably maintain that each country should seek privileges to fly on routes it feels essential to its commerce, with international agreement only on the right of aircraft to fly anywhere in the world. Officials in Washington sympathize with the British objective of an orderly development of international aviation as opposed to cut-throat scrambling for routes and schedules, but the feeling persists that the idea of placing full control of all air commerce in the hands of a single international authority, which had no previous standards or law with which to operate, is not a realistic way of dealing with the problem.

SOUTH AFRICAN COMMENT

(Received October 19. 5.30 p.m.) CAPE TOWN, October .18. “Commonwealth air services should be commonwealth in fact and not only in name,” said the 'South African Minister of Transport, Mr. Sturroek. He added: “It should not b<j a matter of some British companies providing services to the different. Dominions, but the Dominions should be partners?’