IMPERIAL AIR ROUTE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 65, 17 March 1936, Page 8

IMPERIAL AIR ROUTE

DARWIN TO SYDNEY AUSTRALIA’S CLAIM TO CONTROL L Per Tress Association ] AUCKLAND, March 16. “Personally 1 do not think Australia will give up control of the Imperial air route south of Darwin,” said Mr. J. 8. W. btannage, secretary of the Transtasman Air Service Development Company, the late ,Bir Charles Kingsford Smith’s organisation, who arrived from twdney by the Monovvai. Mr. Stannage remarked that his own company had all its preparations complete, even down to the design for its letter heads. All it could do now was to await the Commonwealth Government's decision in the controversy with Imperial Airways regarding the Darwin-Sydney service. This was not expected until after the two Ministers, Dr. Earle Page and Hon. R. G. Menzies had completed their negotiations with the authorities in London. However, the company had an assurance that Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's claim to prior consideration on the trans-Tasman route would be fully weighed. The general belief in Australia was that the scheme put forward by Imperial Airways was too ambitious and 100 costly. The idea of carrying all first-class mail matter by air at 24d a letter seemed to most people to be premature and ahead of public requirements. The Commonwealth was asked to find a subsidy of £140,000 a year and was faced with an enormous loss through the consequential reduction of Its present rale of 2d on ordinary letters. Moreover, it would still have to maintain the steamship mail subsidies which, in fact, rather urgently required to be increased. Australians were inclined to doubt that the British Government fully supported the proposals of Imperial Airways. The latter, in extending its eastern service, had not previously had to deal with self-governing British Dominions. Perhaps it did not fully realise that Australia had a primary right to control the air services within its own territory. The Commonwealth, in any case, had its own internal services to maintain and it. might very well elect to carry on the Imperial service permanently between Darwin and Sydney. A good deal had been made of |i»e argument that there should be unified operation over the whole route, but on the terms proposed this would be a costly advantage. Any time lost in transferring mails at Darwin was more than made up by use of the overland route instead of the longer coastal route that large flying-boats would have to follow. The whole question was very complicated, said Mr. Stannage, in conclusion, but he thought the considerations he had mentioned were likely to prevail.