The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1923. COMMERCIAL AVIATION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 91, 22 August 1923, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1923. COMMERCIAL AVIATION.

A progress report was given at the International Air Conference in London by Brigadier F. N. Williamson, 'Director of Postal Services..

G.P.O. He did not think that an internal air service for the British Isles, or even to Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Rotterdam and Amsterdam offered much scope, as “the advantage of the high speed of the aeroplane increases in proportion to the distance covered.” He spoke as if night flying was as yet not proved to be practicable. If it were not, still a combination of effort, between a train sendee at night and an aero service by day, working in connection would be possible; If business correspondence posted at the end of the day in London could be delivered early next morning in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Vipnna, Berne, Milan, or Mar-; soilles, the inducement to the public to send its letters by air would clearly be enormously increased. Such a prompt delivery would only be possible by a night flying service. There is a French air service between Toulouse and Morocco, which is the only foreign air mail service | open to the British public. This service has drawn an appreciable ' amount of correspondence, while the air service between Cairo and Bagdad has yielded a net gain in time of nearly three weeks, or probably more than could be gained by any air service to any other part, of the Empire. The brigadier concluded his summing up with the opinion that on the main Imperial routes the future lies with the airship. The place of the aeroplane would be as feeder to the airships on branch i lines. He with more boldness than is generally shown by a departmential head, ventured the outline, or forecast, of what may be expected in the “near or distant future,” l which was reported by the “Times” as follows: "One may look forward with a fair degree of confidence ; to future Imperial airship routes to Canada, and possibly the West Indies, on the one hand, and to Egypt, .India, and Straits Settlements, Australia and New Zealand on the other, with connecting airships from Egypt to West,' Central, and South Africa, and aeroplane services working from Uganda (for the East Coast and Zanzibar), from Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, and Port Darwin, to carry mails for important centres away from the main routes. Such developments may come in the near or distant future, but it is perhaps not a rash prophecy that the next generation will see its railways and its steamships supplemented by a complete system of Imperial communication by air.”