The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1938 AIR MAIL SERVICES WITH BRITAIN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20932, 11 January 1938, Page 6

The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1938 AIR MAIL SERVICES WITH BRITAIN.

Without so much fuss as a small Moth plane, the cable messages tell us this morning, the Imperial Airways giant flying-boat Centaurus slipped into Sydney yesterday and made a most graceful landing at about 1 o’clock, after having twice mastered the once-dreaded Tasman Sea crossing, as a mere matter of course. Just what the conquest of the Tasman means to New Zealand has yet to be fully appreciated. At the moment, the Centaurus has not only demonstrated that the Tasman crossing holds no terror for the Imperial Airways flying-boats, but that New Zealand is within measurable distance of becoming linked by air service with the Homeland. It is interesting to mention in passing that in the first few months, the seaplane service from London to Sydney will be run to a 10-days schedule, which is two days less than the existing schedule. Further accelerations will be made as adequate facilities for night-flying are provided along the route, till a schedule of slightly less than seven days is attained. Use of the flying-boats means that more than three times as much passenger accommodation will be available over the route, while capacity for mails will be vastly augmented. Six of the Short four-engined monoplane flying-boats in construction for Imperial Airways will be transferred to Quantas Empire Airways, the associated company which is responsible for the England-Australia air route between Singapore and Sydney. The first of the six, named “Carpentaria,” was scheduled for delivery late in November. Each of the remaining five, which will be ready at intervals of about a fortnight, will also have a name beginning with “C”— the class letter—and similarly associated with Australia. Twenty-three of the boats, including the long-range craft “Caledonia,” “Cambria” and “Centaurus” will remain in the Imperial Airways fleet. At the start of Quantas co-operation in the flying-boat service, the “Carpentaria” and her sister craft will have Quantas personnel only as far west as Singapore, where they will be taken over by Imperial Airways pilots:

Mr Hudson Fysh, managing director of Quantas Empire Airways, has recently returned from England. For some months he has been in England arranging details of the big change-over from land-planes to flying-boats on the Singapore-Sydney run. Before he left for Australia he stated that the Home and the Commonwealth Governments had reached agreement on the preparation and equipment of the seaplane stations in Australia. Work on the stations, he added, would be impeded for some three

months by the rainy season, but minimum needs should be met by the organisation available by next April and the flying-boat service be opened before the middle of the year. Mr Fysh revealed that Intermediate calls would be made at Batavia, Sourabaya, Bima, Kupang, Darwin, Princess Elizabeth Bay (Groote Island), Karumba, Townsville, Gladstone, and Brisbane.

And now that the splendid flying-boat Centaurus has demonstrated not only the practicability of an air service across the Tasman Sea, but the airmindedness of the people of New Zealand, it is hoped that the Government of New Zealand will not delay in concluding arrangements for the linking up of the Dominion with the air services that are to be inaugurated shortly between the Homeland and the Australian Commonwealth, and also the branch services that connect with the trunk air lines. ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADE NEGOTIATIONS. Ever since the Great War considerable friction has been caused by the high trade barriers built up between Great Britain and the United States. Hence the intimation that an agreement is thought to be near, even though it does not come as a surprise, points towards a result that would give general satisfaction in all English-speaking countries. In an unsettled world, the steady growth of Anglo-American co-operation has been one factor inducing confidence, and if that development can be cemented in the economic field, one of the greatest present-day moves towards world peace will have been made. Bickerings over war reparations and the additional burden of the depression, built up trade hindrances which neither nation single-handed, could pull down, and so high did the barriers rise, that feelings of animosity were even created. The United States became possessed of the fallacious idea that a country could live within itself; and with their great resources, the States could have readily put the idea into proctice, if it had been workable at all. In the modern world, the fact is every day being proved—and Germany is proving it at present —that no nation can profitably ignore the benefits of international trade. Perhaps, if we go back to the stabilisation of the franc through Anglo-American assistance, we should find the first evidence of the co-operative spirit growing on either side of the Atlantic. Added to that, there has come a realisation that trade restrictions might constitute contributing causes of world depressions. It is obvious therefore, that if a trade agreement is effected between Great Britain and the United States, important results should follow, and not the least will be the inducement given to other countries to follow suit. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MANUFACTURERS. Although New Zealand footwear manufacturers have made repeated requests to the Government for increased protection against the flood of importations that has been coming into this country from many oversea boot manufacturers, it is becoming clearer every day that the difficulties confronting the Minister of Industries and Commerce are increasing every day. In his address the other day Mr Coates sounded a new note when he said:

“The farmers would not agree to increasing tariffs to keep up with higher internal costs, which were responsible for factories having to reduce staffs.”

In support of the rural community, by from altogether different motives, the tariff committee of the Federated Associations of Boot and Shoe Manufacturers of Great Britain has raised its influential voice in opposition to any change in duties that would tend to handicap the British manufacturer. And on the side of the exporter in Britain is the great agricultural industry which insists that if New Zealand talks about quotas in relation to the exports of British manufactures consigned to New Zealand, the Imperial Government should retaliate by imposing quotas on the importation of New Zealand products, now flowing into Britain, with the balance of trade substantially on our side. In the Homeland the manufacturers are suggesting that the cause of the present unsatisfactory position in relation to the footwear industry is known to New Zealand, but unhappily for the Dominion Government such a clash of interests is involved in the problem of making the necessary adjustments that the Government, at the moment, because it has already so much ou its hands, seems to prefer to pursue a policy of “wait and see.”