FUTURE OF CIVIL AVIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18625, 5 August 1922, Page 11

FUTURE OF CIVIL AVIATION

, POSSIBILITY OF COMMERCIAL , SUCCESS. (From Oor Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 20. General de Castelnau, Mr Winston Churchill, and - Captain F. E. Guest (Secretory of State for Air) were the principal guests at last night’s dinner of the Independent Air Force, which was attended by Group Captain the Duke of York. Captain Guest slid the Air Army was gradually being recognised as the first line of defence, and tlie inauguration of the Air Staff College showed that wo were; .keeping pace with the times. It had -beensuggested that' civil aviation should bo analagous to the Merchant Service, but a moment’s study would show that that ooukia never be so until civil air transport could become a commercial success. The Merchant Service of England was not built up on subsidies, or high insurance rates, nor yet to provide reserves for the Navy. It would be fatal if they permanently departed from the great principle that civil aviation, to bo of any real national value, must, sooner or later, be able to fly byitself. The interim period between the “sooner or later” was, however, the erne with which they were concerned at the .present time, and the Government policy iof giving temporary assistance to this undertaking during its infancy was only justified up to a certain point. The first responsibility of the Government was to safeguard the public from avoidable risks: (a) By guaranteeing the airworthiness of aircraft; (b) by the careful licensing of pilots and ground engineers and (c) by satisfying themselves of the efficiency of a company before allowing it to operate. The duty of the Government was to render tlie maximum of assistance with the minimum, of interference. ‘‘What are the deductions that can be drawn from these considerations?” asked On plain Guest “I think that even if they are a little depressing, they had better be bravely stated. (1) Tlie rapidity and perfection of rail, transport in our small island makes this country the most unlikely of any in Europe for civil aviation to succeed as a commercial enterprise. (2) Our fitful climate is a still further handicap. Tlie British Empire, however, is not confined to the British Isles, and we have within our boundaries and dominions more 'wide stretches of territory, unbridgeable by air, than any other nation in tho world. ' I ani satisfied I that civil aviation can be made a commercial success and Imperial asset by the development ot these further routes.”

f VERY, SMALL, BUT EFFICIENT.! Air Chief-Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard said that they would not be human’ if sometimes they did pot like the criticism that they found levelled at them, in which it was suggested that they were not strong enough. “There was much in the papers a few days ago about the Air Force, and in walking down the Strand I’ saw many posters. We were not strong enough, the critics said, and the Air Force was not big enough. And I rather walked on my toes along the Strand, with a feeling that whatever may be the controversies of the future, at any rate, the Air Force had been formed. It was vety small, certainly, but certainly it is very efficient. There ore many mistakes that must be corrected, but the foundations are there, and it is for’our successors one day to say whether they have been well and truly laid. I firmly believe that, in spite of the difficulties and criticisms and diverse views as to how to build up the Air Service, there are in it the germs of great tilings for the future that are irresistible, and arc bound to grow just as tliis great nation has grown, though, it means hard work.” \ . ANGLO-FRENCH TIES.

Mr Churchill thought the reoprd of the Independent Air Force equal to any similar effort ever made by British soldiers, sailors, or airmen in the whole course of the Grea£ ‘‘You cannot have upon the soil of France six hundred thousand British -graves. You cannot have in our streets and in our villages a much larger number of men carrying grievous soars, you cannot have that immense outpouring of effort, of hope, of sacrifice, of devotion which constituted our contribution to the war, and then turn round a few years afterwards and say t ‘Circumstances, are changed, combinations are different, we will look elsewhere.’ 1 say in tWe presence of th© Independent Air Force, ’of General Castelnau, and the representatives of France, wo have so to mark our destiny that we have got to march forward together.—(Cheers.) That will require great restraint, patience, forbearance, and understanding on both sides. It will require mutual sacrifice; it will require reciprocal conditions, _ but do not lot us mix up the transient incidents of this after-war period with the great and sublime unities of the intense period of the struggle,”—vOheers.)