Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, NOV. 1, 1934. AIR MAIL TRANSPORT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 287, 1 November 1934, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, NOV. 1, 1934. AIR MAIL TRANSPORT.

The Melbourne Centenary Air Race by bringing Darwin within 52 hours of England and Melbourne within 71 hours has stimulated interest in the air mail route between the Mother Country and the Commonwealth. The last section from Singapore southwards is to be opened in time to carry the Christmas mails, and from thence onwards there will be a considerable shortening of the time it will take for mails to be carried either way. It was one of Sir Macpherson Robertson’s keenest anticipations in promoting the contest that a more expeditious mail and passenger service would be hastened, and it is interesting to observe that this view has been an important feature of comment in the United States upon the flight. It is not, unlikely that from this great experience commercial services will also be extended in other parts of the Empire, though the long X'outes themselves have all been established. The flight of the Royal Dutch Air Line machine has strikingly • demonstrated the possibilities that lie before British enterprise in a commercial service between the Mother Country and the Commonwealth, and there will be considerable interest shown in the plan the British Air Ministry, the Post Office, and Imperial Airways are formulating- for the further development of British commercial services. The Douglas aeroplane of the Dutch line is described as one of the largest and most luxurious ever seen in Australia, and an effort is being made to purchase it for use by one of the aerial lines. Easter mail services have been urged by the London Chamber of Commerce, but it has been the British policy to put comfort and safety before high performance. The Air Ministry’s report for 1933 on civil aviation . shows the progress made in the industry of air transport. . There was a greater volume in every class of traffic on every route with one exception during the year. The number of passengers who used British aeroplanes was greater by 19,000 than in the previous year; the total loads increased by about 330 tons, and the mails by 30 tons. The growth of air mails within the Empire accounts for the last figure almost entirely. On Continental routes traversed by British aeroplanes' the mail loads show a reduction, but there was an increase in the air mails for Europe generally. In the main, it is stated, the report proves the soundness of the British policy of comfort and safety before speed. Passengers and mails go together in British machines. The figures of passenger traffic show that. passengers are being attracted, and suggest that the hope of making air transport fly without subsidy is not impossible of realisation. Few nations have such an ideal before them. In the British Empire last year less than £1,000,000 was devoted to civil aviation; the United States Government gave four times that amount, and France £6,000,000 in direct subsidies. As pointed out, the British policy compels the operating company to seek the economy of mixed loads and of the big unit of transport. It also prevents the company indulging in a taste for speed which may be expensive both in operating costs and in the risk of accident where the route passes over tropical lands. On the other hand, it compels the company to seek the comfort of its passengers not only as compensation for slower speeds, but also as a step towards flying throughout the twenty-four hours British. air services from the United

States to Bermuda and'from Canada to Newfoundland, from one or both of which air routes across the Atlantic may ultimately be developed, are envisaged as an early undertaking-. Meanwhile, lesser services are being inaugurated in Empire countries. “When once the great trunk routes have been finished,” says the London Times, “and the public has more fully acquired the habit of using them, the British Empire will offer an immense field for the opening of air lines. The big aeroplane has begun to be a success. Its immediate successor will probably be a sleeping car of the air, and then the mails will be able to travel 2500 miles a day.” By making airtransport self-supporting as far as possible and by developing it. on a sound basis, Britain is giving wise eucouragement to its use by the public; whereas the sacrifice of comfort and safety for speed would do more harm than good at this stage. As the science of aviation in all its branches develops then will come the speed that in the Centenary Air Race has brought Australia to within three days of Britain.