EMPIRE AIR ROUTES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 87, 11 March 1935, Page 6

EMPIRE AIR ROUTES.

BRIGHT FUTURE EXPECTED. MAIN DIFFICULTIES MET. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND. March 10. The view that the main difficulties had been overcome in the proposals for speeding up and otherwise developing air mail services between England and Australia was expressed by Sir Frederic Williamson, Director of Postal Services in Britain, and Sir Edward Campbell, Parliamentary private secretary to Sir Kingsley Wood, the British Postmaster-General, who spent the week-end in Auckland. Sir Frederic and Sir Edward, who were members of the British delegation to the recent air mail conference in Sydney, said they were gratified at the news published on Saturday that the- Australian Government had approved of the principles of the agreement reached by the British and Australian representatives at the conference. Many complicated questions of detail remained to be solved, they said, but they were questions that could be overcome. Finance was an important matter, but it was not one that was insuperable. This fact had been admitted.

Asked if he was optimistic as to the possibility of the service, including the Tasman link' to New Zealand, being in operation in 1937,,5ir Frederic replied: “I am very satisfied with the results of the mission.” Sir Frederic said that finance was a very important question, but both the Australian and the New Zealand Governments had said that finance was not an insuperable difficulty. Imperial Airways would co-operate with the air services in India and Australia; it would not be stated yet who would conduct the Tasman service. The scheme would be one of the most, if not the most wonderful developments of the age. There was nothing comparable with it. Letters would be stamped and posted in the ordinary way without any bother about special stamps and surcharges. Sydney would be reached in seven days from London and New Zealand in. say, nine days. At present it takes 31 days to go by ship from Sydney to London. With the new scheme in force one could go to London, stay there for two weeks, and be back again in less time than it now takes to get there.