INTERNATIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3161, 13 April 1909, Page 3

INTERNATIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIR.

Major B. Baden-Powell, the British aeronautical expert, in a recent letter to the ediior of the London "Times," refereed to the necessity of some international control of the air. It had bß°n clearly demonstrated that apparatus can now be made, he wrote, which can carry men through the air in a practical manner and there seems to be every probability that within the next few years many machines will he constructed capable of travelling hundreds of miles through the air, swiftly, surely, and safely. If then, such machines are to become at all common, it is very evident that laws must be made and modified to meet the new circumstances. The first and one of the most, important questions calling for solution is that regarding international frontiers, seein.fr that neither walls nor fences, mountains nor rivers, nor even seas, offer insurmountable barriers. Are these airships to be allowed to traverse frontiers freely, regardless of passports, independent of Custom duties, defiant of bans of exile and laws of immigration? Are they at liberty to hover over fortifications arsenals and dockyards? Secondly there is the very serious question of private boundaries. Are these "airhogs" (as they are sure to be dubbed) to be ; albwed to pass our private property? May they glide over chimney tops, or skim close above our lawns and fiower-oeds? The law of trespass is intricate as it is, and if proof of damage to property is its mainstay it teems wholly inapplicable to aircraft. Damage due to accidental landings, as well as from articles dropped from above, is anuther matter. Then there must be consideration for enclosures where sporting and|| other events take place and where entrance money is collected. Even if flyers are to be allowed to cross high up in the sky, how can we limit the exact height at which they must travel? If definite laws are adopted controlling such matters, we then get to the still more perplexing problem of how to police these realms of blue. It is all very well to dictate regulations for aerial traffic, but how is the law to be maintained? Machines travelling at a speed of 30 or 40 yards a second get such a start that they cannot easily be followed; unconfined to definite tracks, the transgressors cannot be datained on arrival at their destination. If all machines are to bear registered numbers or means of identilication, there most be some international understanding about it.