AIRSHIP BOOM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 39, 21 June 1913, Page 4

AIRSHIP BOOM.

According to a correspondent the Lon don Stock Exchange is beginning to talk of an airship boom, the sole basis of which will be from the pockets of the public into- those of existing or prospective airship concerns. It certainly appears that the sensational press has been going to work in quite its own way. National defence, national credit, and national taxation are serious matters. And yet, just before the Army and Navy Estimates were produced reports were circulated in all parts of the country that German airships were hovering over the East Coast. It is very difficult even for the most simple-minded and credulous citizen to believe that these absurd reports were manufactured and circulated with purely patriotic motives. It is already known, the correspondent referred to states, that airship plants are being laid down by well-known contractors with the Admiralty and War Office for the purpose of securing Admiralty and War Office contracts. The “Economist” hoped that the Lord Mayor would not preside at the meeting which was to have been held in May for the purpose of forcing a “Daily Mail” airship programme upon the Government, unless he was convinced (1) that the national expenditure and taxation will admit of Supplementary Estimates; f2) that Consols are not already sufficiently low and the Sinking Fund sufficiently small; (3) that a Government which has added in four or five years at least 12 millions sterling to the annual cost of the navy and has raised the'income-tax to Is 7d in the pound on high incomes requires further stimulus from the. Gjty, and (4) that a ratio which has never been applied to the navy , should he applied to airships.