EMPIRE AIR MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 45, 22 August 1938, Page 8

EMPIRE AIR MAIL

THE INAUGURATION

SCENE AT SOUTHAMPTON

CALYPSO TAKES OFF

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, July 30.

When the Calypso took off from Southampton on the inauguration flight of the lid air-mail service to New Zealand and Australia there was among the spectators a New Zealander whose father occupied an imports nt position in the Dominion when the penny postage system was first introduced. This was Sir Cyril Ward, son of Sir Joseph Ward, Postmaster-General of itfew Zealand when the first letter was posted for Id there. The interesting coincidence of Sir Cyril's presence at the beginning of another era in Empire mail services was referred to by the High Commissioner, Mr. W. J. Jordan, at the ceremony preceding the departure of the flying-boat carrying on board letters from the King and other special mail. New Zealand, said the High Commissioner, had always endeavoured to play her part in improving postage facilities, and looked forward to the beginning in the near future of the trans-Tasman air service. The services to all parts of the Empire were bringing the world closer together, and it was hoped that increased trade and friendly relationship would result. Other New Zealanders who watched the ceremony and saw the Calypso depart were Lieutenant-Colonel N. S. Falla, chairman and managing director of the Union Steam Ship Company, and Mr. W. J. Blundell, Wellington. COMMEMORATIVE LETTERS •STAMPED. The occasion marked the first public appearance of Sir John Reith as the new chairman of Imperial Airways. Briefly he introduced Sir Kingsley Wood, Minister for Air, Major G. C. Tryon, Postmaster-General, Sir Earle Page, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and Mr. Jordan. To the accompaniment of whirring cinematograph cameras, Major Tryon carefully stamped letters sent by the King to the Governors-General of New Zealand and Australia, to the Prime Ministers of the two Dominions from Mr. Neville Chamberlain, from the Air Minister to the Dominion Ministers of Defence, and from Lord Stanley, Dominions Secretary, to the Governor of New South Wales, the Lieutenant-Govetnor of Victoria, the Governor of Queensland, the Governor of Australia, the LieutenantGovernor of Tasmania, and the Lieu-tenant-Governor of Western Australia. Other letters also stamped were from the Permanent Dominions Under-Sec-retary to the Acting High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, Canberra, and the Colonial Secretary to the Governor of Fiji, Major Tyron to the Postmasters-General of New Zealand and Australia, and the Director General of the United Kingdom Post Office to the Directors-General of the two Dominions. LETTER TO HON. F. JONES. In his letter to the Hon. F. Jones, New Zealand's Postmaster-General, Major Tryon said: "It has been a great pleasure for me and to the postal service of the United Kingdom to collaborate with you and your Department in solving the many postal problems arising from the extension of the Empire air-mail scheme to New Zealand; and I am happy to be able now to send you greetings by means of the service - which owes so much to your work. "It is no small achievement that all first-class mail for New Zealand is now air-borne throughout its journey in Australia. The spirit shown by the two great Dominions in this achievement makes me confident that the Empire air-mail scheme will soon bridge the Tasman Sea, and that our next letters of greeting will be airborne throughout the 14,000 miles of their journey to New Zealand. I hope that you will accept as a memento the commemorative date-stamp with which I am stamping the special mail on this historic occasion." While a postman held open first one scarlet silk bag for the letters to Australia and then the bag for those to New Zealand, Major Tryon "posted" the messages, and slipped in also the silver date-stamps. The bags he handed to Sir George Beharrell, former chairman of Imperial Airways, and Sir George presented them to the officer commanding the Calypso. There was a general round of handshakes with the commander, and a few minutes later the flying-boat's four engines were started and it nosed its way out to the harbour. Later, it made a wide circle over the spectators before setting off on its flight. AN EVERYDAY ATTITUDE. Before the letters were stamped short speeches were made by Sir Kingsley Wood and Major Tryon. Sir Kingsley recalled the inauguration of the first air-mail service to Australia in 1934, and said that no doubt in a year or two's time it would seem the most natural thing in the world that services should leave England three times a week carrying passengers with speed and comfort over 14,000 miles of land and sea, and that letters for those distant destinations should be carried by air with no extra charge.

It was right, he added, that such achievements should be taken for granted, for it was in that spirit that the Empire air-mail scheme was conceived and worked out, not as a spectacular and costly venture, but as a natural and straightforward development in the common interest of the peoples concerned.

Major Try on said that nowhere outside the British Empire was it possible to send a letter by. air over such immense distances for so low a charge; and nowhere else was there a fleet of flying-boats comparable for size and speed with the 28 Empire flying-boats which had been specially built for these Empire services. In,future there would be five dispatches a week to India, three to Malaya and Australia. About 13 tons of mail a week had been leaving Southampton by Imperial Airways. In future it would be about 20 tons a week. The new service to Australia and New Zealand would promote closer intercourse, better understanding, and peace and good will among the peoples of the Empire.

It is stated that although the flyingboats to operate the new service are large, there are necessarily limits to the quantity of mails which can be carried by each flight. It will not be possible, at the outset at all events, to guarantee that a letter posted on a particular day will be included in a particular dispatch.