AIR-MAILS OF EMPIRE .

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 19 September 1936, Page 4

AIR-MAILS OF EMPIRE .

NEXT YEAR’S GREAT SCHEME EXPLAINED FRESH LANDMARK IN INTERIMPERIAL COMMUNICATION As great a milestone in communication—and in some respects a greater one—than the introduction of the penny post nearly a hundred years ago, is heralded by the trials now in progress with “Canopus,” the first of the new fleet of Imperial Airways flying-boats. This 18-ton air-craft, and 27 sister-ships which are also in construction, will inaugurate a new era in ir.ter-Imperial communication. They will, as they come into service next year, give effect to the decision of the Government to carry first-class letter mail in bulk by air on the Empire routes. When Rowland Hill advocated the penny post he promised that it would furnish an improved method of communication between distant relatives and friends, and would give an increased energy to trade; and that ideal—using the fastest means of transport available—has always been the guiding principle of the Post Office. From coach to train, from sailing ship to steamer, and from surface transport to the highways of the air, the demand has been for speed, and still more speed.

At the present time, from London to Calcutta, a surface transport journey occupies 16 days, and to Sydney, Australia, 31 days. By existing airmail schedules these times are reduced to 6A and 121 days respectively. And what of the still faster services which will become possible with the aircraft of the new air-mail scheme? Here one can quote the Under-Secre-tary of State for Air, Sir Phillip Sassoon, who, when outlining the new project in the House of Commons, said the air was to reduce the transit time to India to just over two days, to bring East Africa within 2£ days of the Homeland, to reduce to four days a journey to the Cape, and to bring Australia within a week of England. ■

No story is more interesting, or - more important than that which Las led progressively, stage by stage, from early experiments in air-mail transport to this new era of day-and-night flying. Looking back into the . past one finds that, within'a year of the introduction of the penny post, the balloonist Gypson was dropping a stamped letter from the air while in a flight. over Lympne; while as far back as 1870 the Post Office issued an official handbill showing how people could send letters to Paris by pigeon-post during the siege of that city. After this came further tests with balloons, airships, and earlytype aeroplanes; and then in 1911 the Post Office gave its official sanction to a series of trials with aeroplanes during which more than 100,000 letters and postcards were flown between Hendon and Windsor. Even during the Great War the question of mails by air was not overlooked, and the Civil Aerial Transport Committee, on which kat experts from the Post Office, was engaged in 1917 in draw- < ing up plans for a post-war use of aeroplanes in the regular carriage of letters. Soon after the war came the . first London-Paris air service, and this, within a few months of its inception, obtained an official contract to carry His Majesty’s Mails. Other routes followed and, as aircraft im- . proved in size, speed and reliability, attention began to be turned to longrange .services between England and various parts of the Empire. In 1923 a Government Committee, reviewing the whole position, recommended that in the development of Empire air transport one national organisation should be created, assisted by the State over a period of years, and having the ability to unfold a comprehensive, clear-cut scheme in respect of aircraft, organisation, and routes. In the following year, giving effect to, {.these suggestions, came the establishment of Imperial Airways. Active preparations followed on the routes to'. India and Africa. New land-planes and flying-boats were ordered. Airports, wireless, and meteorological services were established, and by 1927 a‘ first link was flying between Cairo and Basra. Two years later the Lon-don-Karachi service was in operation; and after that came the route between England and South Africa. Loads increased on the Empire airlines; while extensions of the . India service were pushed through to Calcutta, Rangoon, and Singapore. Australia was, of course, the goal in suen extensions, and by the end of 1934 it became possible to carry air-loads in both directions right through over a route connecting London and Brisbane. Feeder services were also established. West Africa and Hong Kong were brought into the aerial network. Services were duplicated until air-lin-ers were flying twice-weekly in each direction between London and Johannesburg, and twice-weekly, also right through from England to Australia. From 3,000 miles in 1919, the mileage of the world’s air-mails has grownto over 225,000 in 1936, and, in addition to progress eastward across the Empire, Imperial Airways are now preparing for experiments which will . furnish an Atlantic link with the air services of Canada and the United States. The Pacific is also being opened up for commercial air traffic. In seventeen years, since the inception of the first Paris service, the flying-mail has developed into an Empire network from Great Britain to Egypt, Africa, India, Malay, China, and Australia; while the curtain is now about to rise on that still greater phase when the air-mail will be at the Empire’s services as a normal, routine facility, without any special charges being imposed for the hours, days and weeks that will be saved—as compared with surface transport by the swift carriage of bulk loads IS day-and-night flights.