RECIPROCAL RIGHTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20248, 17 July 1937, Page 24 (Supplement)

RECIPROCAL RIGHTS.

FLYING OVER THE PACIFIC. NEED FULLY RECOGNISED. (From a Correspondent.) LONDON, June 15. Recognition by the Imperial Conference of the need to seek reciprocal rights in granting foreign air lines permission to operate on British territory is commented upon by Tile Times this morning in an editorial headed “Flying Over the Pacific.” The agreement among members of the Commonwealth upon this Question, it is stated, may be taken as an expression of the particular interest of British commercial flying in the area of the Pacific. Continuing, the Times states that it may ultimately be as important to have a British air route between Canada and New Zealand as it is for the United States to have a service across the Atlantic. On the latter route' Nature has dictated the course that must be taken In such a way as to leave no alternatives for different nations to adopt, whereas in the South Pacific at all events the two nations may go their own ways to a common Junction and a common terminus. Christmas Island. The' way of the British Empire may be inferred from the recent access of interest in Christmas Island, which stands on a direct route from Auckland to the Hawaiian Islands. Like Midway Island and Wake Island, whioh the United States turned into air stations for its service from San Francisco to the Philippine's, Christmas promises to emerge from the comparative obscurity of its absorption in coconuts and copra to grace the time-tables of fast transport with the hint of goodfellowship which its name conveys. British aeroplanes may oome by the stepping-stones of British islands from New Zealand to this point, 1,200 miles distant from Honolulu, or nearly halfway to Canada. For the rest of the Journey they will be dependent on the goodwill of the United States, just as that great nation has had to count on | British co-operation in its plans to fly | the North Atlantic by some route south of the Arctio Circle.

In the' Pacific, the editorial continues, the United States Government has not yet been asked to admit a foreign air line, to Honolulu. Up to the present it has not had to admit any foreign air traffic from across the sea into its territory. The beginning this wee’k of a British service between Bermuda and New York must open the new era. The entry of ooean mails into the United States from Montreal in British aircraft may have! to be considered within perhaps two years. Soon afterwards a British air line may be expected to ask for permission to fly regularly to Honolulu, and possibly to San Franoisoo, on the way between New Zealand and Canada. In readiness for that day the New Zealand Government has stipulated, in its fifteen-years’ agreement with Pan-American Airways, that the permission must not be withheld if American aircraft are to continue to run into New Zealand. The United States. The ohosen operating oompany for United States oversea services has so far been In the peculiar position of having to ask favours abroad without being able to promise reciprocal favours. A belief in the ultimate good faith of the’ United States has secured lo that operating company most of the favours it needed, and the valuable pioneer work of American commercial flying has been enabled to proceed. The approaching opportunity to return •uoh hospitality is announced in the vast British preparations In the* North Atlantic; in the air mail planes of Canada, Australia and Now Zealand; and In the location of a Government representative with wlroless apparatus at Christmas Island. The significance of these developments in relation to the Pacific, the Times concludes, Is not to be mistaken; nor can there any longer be doubt that the British Empire looks to the United States for assistance In the Pacific, similar to that which Is about to bo afforded by tho British Empire in the Atlantic.