NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

flying for everyone. The effort to establish light aeroplane clubs in Britain has now been fairly launched. The Royal Awo Club had worked out a plan by which any average citizen would be able to learn to fly for a total expenditure of only £ls, but even so recently as last December there was no suitable training machine available, and there was doubt as to the adequacy of the financial assistance offered by the Air Ministry. Both the machine and the financial difficulties were settled in March, says the Times. Early in the month the new De Haviland Moth, fitted with the 60 h.p. Cirrus engine designed by Major ITalford, publicly emerged from its chrysalis. Although it is something more than a light aeroplane, it has undoubtedly solved the problem, and, with the approval of tho Air Ministry, it has been adopted by all the light aeroplane clubs already formed. With this machine at their command, and the assistance of the amended financial proposals of the Air Ministry, the future of the flying clubs is now assured. Not only has fl\ing been made possible for every one at a very low cost, but also those who show any natural aptitude, can, in the surprisingly short time of eight hours, learn enough to pass all his tests, qualify for the Royal Aero Club certificate, and also for the Air Ministry " A" license which entitles him to fly privately over the country. A NEW SPORT AND AN OLD DUTY. The Times says Sir Philip Sassoon hopes that the efforts of the flying clubs will tend to wean the aeroplane from its warlike associations and develop it. more as an agent for civilisation and peace. That, undoubtedly, is a most commendable ideal. But it is not the only purpose which the light aeroplane clubs may be expected and encouraged to serve. The country has had enough experience of joy-riders on the roads. It does not at all wish to see flocks of them in the air. Unless the grants to bo made to these clubs, relatively small as they are in amount, produce pilots fit and ready to defend their country in the air as well as to take part in the development of civil aviation, the money will not have been put to the full and proper use. That is a sentiment which is bound to excite the sterile criticism of those who wilfully and foolishly shut their eyes to tho fact that there is danger in the air. Reckless as they are in stirring up strife within the borders of their own country, any mention of national peril from without, or of the national service which is necessary to insure against it, is to them an unfailing cause of offence. Tho chief service that the promoters of flying clubs have rendered to the nation is that they have made it possible for its young men to qualify themselves to serve and save their country in the air in the hour of need. In tho London area young men are tumbling over one another in their eagerness to join, drawn by a thoroughly healthy and virile instinct. But the use they make of the clubs and of tho newart which they will master will be all the more valuable if, in the process of flying for their own amusement, they bear in mind the fact that in the air. as on land and sea, they have a sacred duty toward the land which gave them birth. RELIEF WORK IN BRITAIN. A substantial contribution toward the alleviation of unemployment in Britain has been made by the execution of public works undertaken by local authorities with financial assistance by the State. The fourth report by the Unemployment Grants Committee states that since the committee was established in 1920, 10,850 schemes, to the value of over £88,250,000, have been approved and granted financial assistance. These schemes have, it is estimated, resulted in the provision of million man months of direct employment on the side of execution of the works, and at least as much more in the preparation of the necessary materials. The method of relieving unemployment by the institution of public works (says the report), is by no means a new one. A borough surveyor of a northern town in carrying out a road-widening scheme recently unearthed a tablet which bore an inscription to the effect that the road was constructed by the unemployed in 1826. But it appears even yet to be haidly sufficiently realised that public works instituted for the relief of unemployment arc for tho most part, and certainly so iVr as they are assisted by the Unemployment Grants Committee, ot material value io the community fiom more than one poi.ut of view, and are very far removed from mere " mud-shovelling," which so of tow appears to constitute the general idea of this method of alleviating the effects of unemployment. They have comprised improvements and extensions of dock and harbour'facilities; the execution of electricity, gas, water supply and sewerage works;' the formation of roads and the provision of piirks and recreation grounds. Though onl> a portion of those unemployed can be engaged on these schemes, the moral a.\'d psychological effect of the employment is a great factor to which many k>cal authorities attach very great importance; indeed, in some cases it is considered that the preservation of order has been materially assisted by the fact of thesii works being in progress It has been reported to officers of the committee thiit the unemployed men look forward to their turn of work, and resent keenly any seemingly partial or iwiaLr distribution of it.