The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1931. ANOTHER RECORD GOES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18849, 11 April 1931, Page 12

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1931. ANOTHER RECORD GOES.

Even in these days of amazing feats of aviation, it is no mean achievement for a young Queensland airman to have lowered by fourteen hours. Air Commodore Kingsford Smith’s record for a flight to Australia. The wonderful performance is at once a tribute to the quality of the airman’s skill and the high standard of British aircraft. Surmounting all difficulties, another intrepid airman has put up a singularly wonderful performance as a lone flyer across the wide and diverse regions between England and Australia. Again the übiquitous light aeroplane, frequently flown by women enthusiasts, has carried the Britisli flag to fresh victories. Experienced airmen like Air Commodore Kingsford Smith and Mr R. P. Caspareuthus set new and astonishing records for the journeys between England, Australia and South Africa. Bess than ten days after leaving London Kingsford Smith alighted on Australian soil; nine days out from Lympne Mr Caspareuthus landed in Cape Town. Both these records have now been eclipsed. Even more impressive from some points of view are the achievements of “novices” —people with less than 200 hours of flying experience—who have flown alone in light aeroplanes to the uttermost ends of the earth. Mr Oscar Garden flew for sixty hours in England, where in his spare time he learned to fly at the Norwich and Norfolk Aeroplane Club, bought a second-hand biplane “over the counter" in a big London store, decided to fly it back to his home in Australia and New Zealand, and arrived without fuss or incident in eighteen days. Miss Amy Johnson, in spite of bad weather, got there in less than 20 days. Mrs Victor Bruce steered an eventful course over 11,000 miles from England to Japan. She flew 114 hours on the way there and more than doubled her flying time! It is no disparagement of the human element in these astonishing journeys to claim that the aircraft employed must be strong, trustworthy and simple to control and maintain. In international competitive flying, too, Britisli light aeroplanes have done well. Miss Winifred Spooner, one of the world's best women air pilots, headed all entrants in the

“heavy” category of the international “Round Europe Tour'’ organised last year by the Aero Club of Germany. A few weeks later she finished among the first three in the Italian contest, flying on equal terms with some of the finest pilots in that airminded nation. But in lauding the work of present-da}’ pilots, it is well to remember the courageous and capable airmen who blazed the trail in face of tremendous difficulties, and, actuated by that inspiring appeal to the race “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” they went forward along the uncharted regions of aerial development, and established the earlier records which spoke such volumes for the courage, skill and daring of the pioneers in aerial exploration. WEALTH IN WHALES. It is just as well to point out, in connection with the interesting observations of Mr H. B. S. Johnstone, voiced yesterday, on the unsatisfactory position of the control of the Antarctic whaling industry, that New Zealand’s influence does not extend beyond the boundaries of the Ross Sea Dependency. Quite extensive operations are conducted by efficiently equipped whaling fleets outside the boundaries of British territory; nevertheless, Mr Johnstone did well to point to the inadequacy of the return being drawn by the New Zealand Treasury by way of license fees imposed on whaling companies operating in Ross Sea Dependency. Not only do the whaling companies reap a rich and bounteous harvest, but the effect of their operations, if Mr Johnstone’s deductions are accurate, and we believe they are, is not only to depress the tallow market and thus indirectly impose a substantial loss on New Zealand’s overseas trade, but to menace the Antarctic with the extermination of the whales. It is interesting, of course, to learn that the gross return yielded from the operations was something like £363,000, but it is clear evidence of lack of appreciation of the vast potentialities of this Bourse of unexploited wealth existing in the Southern Seas, that New Zealand received only £7870 by way of royalties and license fees, whereas, the companies pocketed hundreds of thousands of pounds. As Mr Johnstone pointed out, the existing license fee is £2OO a year for each factory ship and a royalty of 2/6 per barrel on each barrel of oil in excess of 20,000 barrels. This payment is regarded by Mr Johnstone as “a mere bagatelle when the returns from the industry are considered.” Moreover, in view of what Mr Johnstone regards as the unlimited slaughter of whales in the Ross Sea Dependency, it behoves the Government not only to review the whole question, in relation to the altogether inadequate scale of licenses and royalties as prospective sources of new jyvenue for the public

Treasury, but to avail itself of the services of the highest experts in the land to furnish it with reliable information on the risk of extermination of whales which is threatened by uncontrolled slaughter. It is difficult to say, however, just to what extent the increase yields of whale oil have had upon the tallow market, in view of the general low price level of the products of the pastoral industry, but it is not inconceivable that the annual harvest of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil has forced down prices and in some cases, inflicted hardships on producers. It is interesting to recall, however, that such little practical interest has been aroused in the wide sweeping operations of the whaling countries, that only failure resulted from a well organised effort to float a New Zealand whaling company for the purpose of exploiting the vast wealth-pro-ducing potentialities of the Southern Seas.

LABOUR PARTY’S WHEAT POLICY.

Notwithstanding the periodical attacks directed against the wheat-grower by the Labour Party, it is not surprising Mr Holland and his fellow colleagues with one eye on the prospects of a general election and the other on rural constituencies, ■ have thought fit to pretend that the Labour Party has no fixed policy in relation to the measure of protection afforded the wheatgrower. Hence the non-commit-tal tone of the discussion of the Labour Party Conference on wheat duties. It was ultimately decided to endorse the following resolution: “That a special subcommittee be set up, with instruclions to investigate and report to the National Executive upon problems of wheat production, prices and duties, production, distribution and price of flour and bread to consumers, while ensuring standard wages to wheat farm employees and an adequate return to wheat farmers; also to investigate and report upon primary production and export prices generally, with a view to forming a policy of stabilisation of incomes of bona fide working farmers engaged in primary production.” These proposals are shrewdly designed to catch the ■vote of the wheat-grower and rural worker generally. But the whole thing is too thin. The Labour Party is hostile to the wheat-grower insofar as any measure of tariff protection being accorded the industry is concerned, and it is just as well that rural interests generally, should cultivate a reliable memory and not be persuaded to regard the Labour Party as anything but hostile to the protection now saving the New Zealand wheat industry from destruction at the hands of neighbouring and foreign dumpers.