MAJOR POINTS SETTLED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 176, 25 June 1938, Page 10

MAJOR POINTS SETTLED.

It is good news that comes from Canberra that all the major points affecting the conduct' of the trans-Tasman air mail service have been settled. There remain some outstanding points to be resolved by the High Commissioners in London and the British Government, but no difficulty is anticipated in this regard, for the service between Auckland and Sydney is to operate either at Christmas, or the New Year. Receut messages were hopefiil enough to suggest that the points in dispute delaying the complete settlement of negotiations were likely, to be smoothed away, and it is to the good that what has been described at various times as a “deadlock” and a “hitch” has given way to agreement on the major points. After the personal representative of I Imperial Airways in Australia conferred with the Government in Wellington, recently, he declared himself as being hopeful that there would be a service across the Tasman by the end of this year, or at the beginning of next. His prediction, mild though it was, now seems likely to be fulfilled, unless of course there is another hitch. Though six months will elapse before the important trans-Tasman link in the service between the Mother Country and New Zealand will be forged, there have been such endless delays in the negotiations that the public will not mind this very much . The scheme for the carriage of all letter mails by aeroplanes between' various parts of the Empire dates back to 1934, when the British Government made its proposals of great vision, but negotiations so far as this Dominion is concerned have dragged wearily on. Six months ago the Centaurus made its survey flight between Sydney and Auckland to demonstrate the practicability of a commercial service, and at last the major points in dispute between Australia and New Zeaand have been settled. The new service between the Commonwealth and England will be inaugurated on July 2, and in August it will be in full operation. Dutch interests ore also making contact between Australia and the Netherlands, and it is of the. utmost importance to New Zealand that there should be as little delay as possible'in the completion,: of the Tasman link. It will- be hoped, therefore, that nothing more will happen to delay its progress and that the end of this year will see it in full operation.