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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0832.PDF
If LIGHT the actual monetary loss sustained." The irony of this is apparent when it is recalled that the affairs of the hotel are in the hands of a receiver and that it was making no profit at the time it was taken over. The net effect of the Government's contention is that neither the debenture holders nor the shareholders are to receive a penny piece byway of compensation for the use by a public department of their premises ! A worse example of the doctrine of confiscation by a Government of private property it would puzzle Germany or Turkey to produce. It is a fair sample of what lias been going on and what has to be expected in the future for our complaisant acceptance of rule by the lawyer caste. Steeped to the lips in feudalism and brought up to regard the quibble as an art to be cultivated and excelled in, there is no length to which the lawyer politician will not go, no depth to which he will not descend, so long as he can keep within the four corners of the law he himself has evolved and, having evolved in all its devious phrasing, proceeds to interpret to suit himself. Fortunately, there is a precedent wliich will prob ably assist in setting aside the preposterous idea that the Crown may possess itself of the property of the individual and pay nothing for it, or, alternatively, make a payment to be assessed by itself as " an act of grace." We refer to the similar case in which an aerodrome was taken over by -fee War Office, the owners of which had to fight their way through the Courts in defence of their rights. After losing in the Court of King's Bench and. the Court of Appeal, they proceeded to the House of Lords, but before judgment was asked for, the Crown discovered that it was wrong, agreed to pay compensation and thus avoided a possibly adverse decision which would have been binding as a precedent. In commenting upon this case in our issue of July 23rd, 1915, we said,:—, " If, as it would appear from the arguments on behalf of the Crown, upheld by the Court of Appeal, a a Air It a ids and Munition Workers. THE following announcement was issued by the Ministry of Munitions on September 26th :— " If a munition worker (as denned by the Munitions of War (Amendment) Act, 1916, is, on Or after October 1st, 1916, killed or injured by hostile aircraft, or by the measures taken to combat them, whilst upon the premises of the factory in which he is employed, and if the injured worker or his dependents on proceeding under the Workmen's Compensa tion Act, 1916, fail to recover compensation, His Majesty's Government undertake to pav compensation on the scale of the Act." An American View. —*• *"* IN view of the mendacious fables sent out from Berlin regarding the results of Zeppelin raids on England, it is interesting to note the following comment by the New York Times on Sunday's raid :— " In view of the German loss of life and the cost in the latest Zeppelins, one may predict that the German idea of crushing the British by the latest species of frightfulness will be apt to cool a little. As a rule, on the day after the raid the Berlin Government Press Bureau sends a long descriptive wireless bulletin to America, and doubtless to other neutral countries, describing the damage done to ' fortified towns, ammunition factories, dockyards, ships in harbour,' and 30 forth—a long list of strictly military damage. This time no such wireless "has arrived, and when it does will be little credited—first, because the British bulletins already SEPTEMBER" 28, 191 & the prerogative of the Crown legally entitled it to make this very one-sided bargain, the sooner it is set right the better. True, it was admitted that ' as a matter of grace ' the King might consider the giving of compensation. But surely in this year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifteen we should have done with such 'acts of grace.' The loyal citizen desires no such act of grace. His desire is to serve his King and country in their need to the best of his ability, coupled with the right in return for justice as an indi vidual suffering by necessity of circumstances in the common cause of the community. And that should carry with it compensation for compulsory acquisition —always provided there is anything to show there is compensation due. " In this connection we have no knowledge of the particular case as to whether any or how much compensation might be morally due, or whether it may be a case of relief to the owner to acquire the premises. We express no opinion whatsoever there fore on this point. But that the Crown should be at liberty to seize any and all property at its own sweet will, without even an iota of right on the part of the owner to claim compensation for whatever it may be worth, appears to be going away back to the dark days of feudalism." These words apply with equal force to the case at present under notice. This doctrine of the lawyers that the individual is to be made to pay what should be a charge on the community requires to be set right. If the Crown—or, rather, those who do in the name of the Crown acts which the Crown itself would be the first to disown—cannot be brought to recognise the difference between meum and tuum through the Courts, then it is for the non-lawyer element in Parlia ment to set the matter right legislatively. The country has stood a great deal in its anxiety not to hamper the administration, but it will not stand barefaced confiscation. B H published here have been found accurate, and next, because the German accounts—even those of the latest battles—have been so extravagantly inaccurate as to excite ridicule." The New York Tribune says that, according to information which reached them a few weeks ago, Germany has less than twenty Zeppelins of the dimensions of those destroyed. The Seizure of the " Prins Hendrik." AN exciting incident at the seizure of the Dutch maH steamer " Prins Hendrik" by German torpedo-boats was the appearance of an aeroplane, or, according to a German semi-official report, three aeroplanes, which attempted to *bomb the torpedo-boat escorting the steamer through the minefield after she had been released from Zeebrugge. The German account states that the torpedo-boat was un damaged, but that the mail steamer was slightly damaged and three of the crew wounded. The Danish Trans-Atlantic Broject. To the Copenhagen correspondent of the New York Times, Ensign Pollner has given some further details of his proposal to fly across the Atlantic. The seaplane is to be built in Denmark by engineers from the Polytechnic Academy, Copenhagen, and will have two motors of 160 h.p. each. It will carry a fuel supply of two and a half tons. The young officer means to start from Copenhagen early in July, flying directly to the Faroe Islands, and waiting his chance there to take the trip across the sea. Severinsen, a mechanical engineer, will accompany Pollner, who is already busy on his preparations. 828
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