AIR COMMUNICATIONS.

Southland Times, Issue 19238, 8 May 1924, Page 4

AIR COMMUNICATIONS.

It has been left for the first Labour Government in the Old Country to evince some practical interest in. the Burney scheme for the development of the Imperial air communications. The situation is not without its humours. Ministries which were loud in their advocacy of everything Imperial toyed with this scheme, neither wholly rejecting nor actually testing the proposal, and a Labour Cabinet, with a militant pacifist as Under-Secfetary for Air, looks like deciding to give the plan a trial. The Under-Secretary for Air may turn to the Burney scheme with a sigh of relief after the gymnastics he has had to indulge in since he took up his duties. A little white ago he was thundering, with all the belligerency that a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist can be depended on to command, against the expenditure of the State’s money on implement of war, and there were visions of Mr Leach suppressing the Royal Air Force or using it to distribute anti-war handbills, but shortly after one of these outbursts he had to appear before the

House of Commons and move the Estimates for the Air Ministry, providing means for the expansion of Britain’s aerial fighting force. The House enjoyed the situation, but Mr Leach did his tumbling in good grace and emerged from a trying ordeal with not a little credit. The determination to strengthen the Air Force is excellent, but of greater import for the Empire is the Government’s display of vigour in connection with civil flying. Commander Burney, whose name is associated with this scheme for the development of Imperial communications by air, has had to suffer many disappointments, and listen to much disheartening talk as he tried to convince Ministers that with proper management there was no reason why the scheme should commit the public funds to very large expenditure until its practicability was firmly established. Giant airships have gone out of favour as a result of the series of mishaps dating from the collapse of Germany’s Zeppelin force in one spectacular disaster and the destruction of the various craft built for the Americans, but the causes of those accidents are known and can be guarded against in civil flying. The Labour Government is expected to agree to the spending of £1,000,000 so that two airships made be put on the route to India as a preliminary to the development of a service extending throughout the Empire. If the Government does no more than this it will have gone further than its predecessors in office, who did not even test the attractive plan. It may bo called attractive because it opens up such a vjpta of Imperial organisation. It is now a well-established fact that the most potent means of uniting the Empire and of maintaining its solidarity is the improvement of its communications. Steamship routes do not offer much room for speeding up—at most the time between New Zealand and the Old Country could be reduced by two or three days; but if the Burney scheme gives us what is promised, the time occupied by the passage from the Dominion to London will be half of what it is now. It is not difficult to see that by shortening the time occupied in travelling, the units of the Empire will be brought closer together, that consultation between these units will be made easier and more effective, and that the day of complete union in the administration of the affairs of the Empire will be brought closer. The Burney scheme offers such possibilities that any Government would be fully justified in prospecting to see whether or not it is a feasible proposal. So far we have had nothing but talk. It remains for the Labour Government to put the scheme to a practical test.