The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1919. THE AGE OF THE AIR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVIII, Issue 1682, 2 June 1919, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1919. THE AGE OF THE AIR.

It is not surprising that the attempts at an Atlantic t have captured the world's imagination. i'or the winning- ot tlie "Daily Mail's" prize 01 i.*IU,I)UU for this feat will be sufficient demonstration that nothing will be impossible to aircraft in the future. Already the Atlantic lias been crossed, to© slowly 1o win the prize, by an American seaplane, and at any time we can expect to hear that the "Daily Mail's" requirements have been fulfilled. Meanwhile airmen are preparing to compete for another prize of £IO,OOO offered by the Commonwealth Government for the first flight from Great Britain to Australia. That journey can be made practically all the way over land. When the series of aerial stations, ending- now with India, at which machines can be overhauled, renairs effected, and new parts obtained, lias' been completed,_ there will be no fi'reat dangers in this journey. No doubt it will bo covered constantly, for commercial purposes, by relays of machines. In the meantime, if an airman should come to grief' over vast tropical forests or be '"forced to descend among head-hunting Dyaks, lie miaht be worse off than if his mishap occurred at sea. Oak and triple bronze may well be needed for the heart of those who will essay the flight in present conditions, but time will make il almost commonplace, nor will even New Zealand be outside the zone of trans-oceanic aviation. In 15 hours 15 minutes NC 4 voyaged from Newfoundland to Iho Azores, and the distance rs Ux further across the Tasman Sea. A hundred years ae-o the worU isaw the commencement of railway traffic. Fifty years ago the first steamship crossed the At- | lantic. What those beginnings meant—and few probably who watched their first achievements | understood how they would change the face of land and ocean, bringing a new age to pass—the aerial journeys which we read of mean to-day. We stand on the threshold of a new age of aerial navigation. Progress may be slow. When all the great flights have been made by adventurers years will certainly elapse before flying can be used to any great extent for general purposes. The enormous amount of pioneering work still requiring to be done before it can have much commercial development can be gathered from the organisation of the British Civil Aviation Department. That has been divided into five main branches, three of which will be concerned with communications, nieteorolo""" and information, to be collected from all over the world and issued to the British industry in whatever direction it is required. The fourth branch will be concerned with licensing, registration, records, and aerodrome inspection, and the fifth with international programmes and regulations. In all the world to-day there is not one aeroplane designed for civilian purposes. But the worst difficulties have been overcome. Spoakiner recently in London, Maior-Generai Brancker, of the British Department, forecasted that there would probably be considerable criticism, disappointment, and possiblv financial failure before commercial aviation could be greatly developed, but he had no doubt of the wonderful success it would prove eventually. The time would come when the air-borne commerce of the Empire would provide a link between Great Britain and the dominions oversea surer and more invulnerable than ever its seaborne commerce had been*

Tho Germans .should not object to tho trial of their ox-Kaiser, or of any others of those who taught them to make war their object, when thoy read what tlio war lias cost them in terms of tho casualties reported to-day. Tho linal estimate of the losses, it is stated, includes l,(jli7,000 Germans killed and .'HI,OOO missing—say two millions killed—with over four million wounded and 010,000 still unreturned prisoners. Tlio losses of tho British Empiro wore nearly 800,000 deaths, with two million wounded and GG,6SS missing. If tho -British Empire paid terribly for victory Germany has eauso to mo tho price of defeat. Tho prisoners will be returned when Peace is signed. Meiuiwlhilo they are well fed, which they could not be in Germany, wit 1 no chance of making any mischief.

That is a horrid story which is told by tho "Daily Express's" correspondent of tho Greek occupation of Smyrna. If tho talo is nob exaggerated, tho Greeks have lost no timo in performing excesses against their past oppressors. Tho actual number of tho victims, however, may not have been large, and, though wo may be surprised at tho Greek atrocities, it is not likely that tho Turks wero. Murdering Greeks, jiot alono in Smyrna, but in every town of Asia Minor where they had obtained it lodgment, was for them a chief amusement before tho latest war. TBio expulsions and tho massacres which wiped out n. great part of tho Armenian nation during tho war period were first practised on tho Greeks, not on tho same scale, but on tlio largest possible and for weeks together. "First tho Greeks, then tho Armenians, then the Arabs, last tho Kuids, was tOie Moslem programme as one Turk explained it. Tho Kurds wore kept till tho last, because M,<-v woro good executioners of (ho others. Tho Turks have n claim 1o be protected from reprisals, hut they can or, plead lack of provocation for Grewc outrages. A late message, gives the Greek story of tho occupation, very difficult from i Ic, cnr:v ; .p,indent';-:.