A SINGLE HEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 141, 11 December 1935, Page 9

A SINGLE HEAD

AVIATION CONTKOL

TO AVOID CHAOS

APPROACH TO GOVERNMENT

The Wellington Chamber of Commerce last evening, by unanimous voice, agreed to a proposal from the president (Mr. M. G. C. McCaul) that representations should be made, through the Associated Chambers, to the Government for the establishment of an Air Ministry, or a portfolio of air, that the control of aviation in all its forms in New Zealand might be placed on a sound basis. To continue with the' present divided control, said Mr. McCaul, would be to lead to chaos.

At the present time, said the president, the Transport Co-ordination Board was generally taking care of commercial aviation, aero clubs were instructing pilots and dealing with activities allied to club work, and the Defence Department was considering aviation from the point of view of defence. Inevitably there was a certain degree of conflict of opinion and of work under a divided control, for where three men of equal power were engaged in the same work conflict was unavoidable, human nature being what it was.

"I think that the time has come when we should consider whether we should not ask the Government to consider the establishment of an Air Ministry," said Mr. McCaul. "Presumably the Minister of Air would hold that portfolio in conjunction with other portfolios, for there would not be sufficient work to occupy his full time, but lie should be in a position of supreme control of all matters in connection with the air in New Zealand. Consequently the head of the air branch of the Defence Department would be under that Minister, so with the aero club 3, arid also the Transport Coordination Board in so far as its work was concerned with aviation services, and we would' then have real coordination of all branches of aviation activity. • Today, it seems to me, we are starting along three separate roads that can only lead to chaos. I believe that the sooner all aviation activities are placed under one head'the' better."

Mr. A. R. Hislop said that he thought the suggestion came at an opportune time. He also Relieved that, it would only be-by placing all allied'interests under one control that effective coordination of at present conflicting interests could be brought about. The portfolio of air could be held by one of the present Ministers, and the establishment of an undivided control would, he believed, result in great advantage to New Zealand in the future. The Dominion was at the moment at the cross-roads in aviation development, and the indications were that the country was rather wandering from the central track as a consequence of one interest workiii" against another. Moreover, he thought that the people of New Zealand would have a greater confidence in the future of aviation were its control placed upon a more systematic basis.