NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18174, 21 August 1922, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

• , i ■ ' " SCRAP THK AIR." The future of aviation, particularly in [ relation to warfai'e, has been the subject of a highly interesting discussion in the i columns of the London Times. Among , the contributors has been Mr. John Galsworthy, who wrote on July 1, as follows : t "In the matter of the air we in ' England , stand at the parting of the ways. The ways are throe : —-One: Secure by general consent of nations and rigid safeguards total suppression of air machines for 1 any ' purpose whatever —far the best way. | Two: Assure for at great expense and with the same machinery of Secret Service, the policy hitherto pursued with regard*'to the outworn eea—the two, or one and a-half Power standard. Three: 1 Let things drift. No practical men appear to admit the possibility of the first ' way, which is, of course, far the. most practical. Wasn't life good eno?igh on the earth before flying wa* invented? What have we gained by this invention? What shall we gain? Nothing worth the price we shall pay. Common sense says: Scrap the air. But 'human nature is superior to oommon sense. The second wav is fairly ruinous, and, judging _from the analogy of sea armaments, probably means an air war within 20 years. .Rut the third way for this country is entirely ruinous. The one thing that we English apparently cannot or will not realise is that -we—-huddled in towns, and dependent on shipping for our food —are in far more dangerous case than any other country in the event of war under the new conditions. If we low our shipping—and we should lose our shipping in the first few days—we starve. We have no time to recover, no time for 'muddling through, no time for the national character to assert itself—we can't hold out. Tl)e_ two fields in which th© trustees for this country should be most forthright, alert and lavish, are the two fields they selected for retrenchment in this year's Budget—land policy and air defence. If the Government is alive on these two points of common safety they take an odd way of showing it." PROGRESS BY SACRIFICE. Readers may draw their own conclusions as to Mr. Galsworthy's seriousness in advocating the suppression of aviation. On that point he was promptly challenged by Mrs. J. E. M. Pritchard, widow of Major Pritchard, who was the first man to land in America by air from the other side of the Atlantic, and who was killed in the R.3S disaster. She wrote to the Times: —" Mr. Galsworthy has lived before. His name was Epimetheus. 'Scrap the Air.' Had' we scrapped the Crusades, scrapped the North-West Passage amd rounding the Horn, scrappod the North and South Poles, scrapped the first transatlantic airship flight, scrapped Mount Everest — in fact, scrapped all endeavour and aspiration in man—what a safe, able, and prosperous race of —Forsytes would have resulted! No. The faith and obtain hope of all of us who have given our all for progress is unshakeable; that the future of the human rac« depends upon the Prometheus-Man, who, though the fate of Prometheus overtake him, knows that man must go on, conquering the elements and gaining new knowledge; per ardua ad astra. And thai, faith we widows of pioneers slialJ teach our children." GROSSING THE ATLANTIC. References 'lo five-days' voyages from New York to London have been examined by ths Liverpool correspondent of the London Times, who quotes a shipping authority for tbe statement that fiveday passages in the inclusive sepse were never made, and they would not be good business. When * the shipping lines ad--1 vertised passages, of four and a-half days across the Atlantic they measured the Atlantic from Daunt's Rock, a long way west of Queenstown, to the Ambrose Channel, 24 miles outside New York. Many factors have to- be considered besides the last knot of speed possible "to extract from the boilers. The Mauretania has "averaged 26.06 knots on her fastest outward passage. That was before the war. The change since has been insignificant. A recent trip was done at 25.29 knots, the world's record since the war. Leaving New York on Tuesday, she arrives at Cherbourg on the afternoon of the following Monday, in time for her passengers to dine in Paris the same evening. She then crosses to Southampton, and, in favourable circumstances, her passengers for London can dine in the Metropolis late the same evening. No Ship crosses the Atlantic at greater speed. The Aquitania's average speed is 24 knots. But the public are not .all eager, for . " record " passages. The Atlantic traffic goes along quite prosperously with an intermediate type of boat, such as the Cunarders, Carmania, Scythia, and Samaria. Passengers in the majority of cases are moro concerned about comfort. It will surprise many people to know that the CanadianPacific ocean services row include a run of five and a-half days from Quebec to Liverpool. That, of course, is a summer passage, but it was done by the Empress of France last Augusit in 5 days 11h.,30m. The Empress of Britain has made theremarkably quick round voyage from Liverpool to Quebec and back in 15 days 9h. 30m., including the time for unloading and reloading cargo and food supplies. As a matter of fact, the CanadianPacific are not now building for speed; they find ample scope in catering for comfort at a moderate cost. THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE. An American estimate of the Washington Conference has been given in a book recently published, by Mr. Mark Sullivan, who is one of the best-known"publicists in the United States. He belongs to the comparatively small band of writers who have realised the ajribition of many American journalists in becoming the accredited representatives at Washington of a big newspaper, or syndicate of newspapers, published elsewhere. " Great Britain might have acted on th© instinct of pride; might have accepted the lesson of history; might have bent her back into keeping her mercantile shipping position and maintaining her supremacy of armed sea power." he writes. "We, on our part, have thrown our resources into building the greatest mercantile fleet in the world, and into achieving the supremacy of armed sea power that goes with the possession of mercantile shipping leadership. We could have won th© race, if it had been made a race. But this race, with air its sinister implications and omens, was ended and put aside by the Washington Conference. In the Washington Conference, Great and Ahierica said, in effect: 'We will not fight for this prize. We will not enter into a competition of armed power. We will keep our Navies equal. We. will let the economic supremacy be a matter of ordinary competition in trade. ' We will let it go in peace to whichever competitor shows tbe greater deserving' in commercial ingenuity and the most intelligent and effective utilisation of resources. As to our arms, we will agree to reduce them to the basis of the ordinary necessities of defence; thereafter we will keep them equal, and we promise not to draw them against each otner.* In this act, Great Britain surrendered actual dominance oJ naval power, and we surrendered potential dominance. Great Britain gave op the heritage she had held tar more than two hundred years; and we gav« up the ambition to take it from her for ourselves. It was, as I have said, in a sense placed in a partnership to be administered for the common good. It was this peaceful pasting of naval dominance, or, to express it more accurately, this turning over of dominance to, so to speak, a board oi trustees, making it no longer a'prise,of selfishness to he contended for by jealous nat'Ons, but rather a co-operative responsibility to be administered joiiftly, that made the Washington. Conference 1 unique jp histoiys l ~ ;