AVIATION IN DOMINION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 November 1934, Page 3

AVIATION IN DOMINION

LANDING GROUND EXTENSION

STATEMENT BY MINISTER. WELLINGTON, Nov. 9. The development of a chain of landing grounds on defied air lines throughout the Dominion, a work which has been in progress for some time, is being pushed on steadily by the Defence Department. The Minister of Defence (Hon. J. G. Cobbe) describing the objects of the scheme in an said that the establishment of emergency grounds at regular intervals was regarded as necessary to give mobility to the New Zealand Air Eorce in its normal flying operations up and down the country. It was also considered that this object should be combined with that of setting up aerodromes for the civil air transport needs of the future.

As yet there had been no insistent demand in this country for air transport, but the Minister was confident that it would come in the- not far distant future. Opportunity was now being taken to utilise unemployed labour in the construction of aerodromes on the main air routes, thus creating an asset for the Dominion instead of allowing that labour to be used on works of little consequence. The Government had been criticised for taking advantage of th? unemployment fund for this purpose, on the ground that the work was of national importance and that it should be financed out of capital as whole-time work. However, it would be impossible at this juncture to finance aerodrome work in this way, and the Minister considered that no sounder work eould be found for surplus unemployed labour. The conditions of the men were, moreover, in every case more favourable than those

of the normal No. 5 scheme work, although it had been stated in some places that the contract system caused individual hardship. The Minister explained that up to the present 90 airports, aerodromes, and emergency grounds sites had been reported on, 28 had been surveyed, improvement work had been authorised on 23 and construction begun on 21. In the general scheme of aerodrome development New Zealand was keeping .well abreast of the times. It might not be possible on some parts of the main and subsidiary air routes to provide landing fields immediately, but if some sections of these routes could be equipped the need for capital expenditure in the future would be greatly lessened.

New Zealand, with its great distances, its long and straggling coastline, its difficult topography, and its slow surface transport, must offer favourable avenues for air transport, and evidence that this was being generally recognised was manifest in the interest taken in the establishment of air transport companies in the Dominion at the present time. In this country, as in other countries in the British Empire, the provision of airports was considered to be primarily a municipal or local body responsibility, and .unless a local authority was in itself interested in the construction of an airport the Government could not be held responsible for providing local air facilities for purely local needs. The remarkable achievements in the Melbourne air race, added Mr Cobbe, had done much to quicken interest in New Zealand in all matters connected with aeroplanes and aerodromes.. The Defence Department and the Minister himself had received many inquiries from, mostly, very desirable recruits tor appointments in the Air Force Only a few were required to meet the quota, | but the names of all applicants were listed for future reference.