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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0990.PDF
mffir NOVEMBER 9, 191&. QUEER thoughts assail man's brain at times. I have just been wondering whether a man ever does anything of his own free will, or whether every action he takes, from the* time he is born until the time of his departure from this life, is taken because he has to take it. It appears absurd on the face of it to suppose a man cannot, at least in most things, do as he pleases. In fact, his actions throughout his whole life appear to point to it that he does please himself. But when investigation is made, and thoughts allowed to flow, it does not seem at all so certain. Undoubtedly a man is born because he has got to be born, undoubtedly he dies because he has,got to die. Here at the beginning and end of things personal, compulsion is proved beyond doubt, it cannot be a too great stretch of the imagination to suppose that it is possible all in between is governed in the same way. I am not going to flop right into a declaration of a belief in destiny, nor to deny that man is an intelligent animal capable of guiding and governing his life in certain channels, orderly or the reverse. Within limits, perhaps within narrower limits than we think, man performs that which is popularly known as pleasing himself, but outside those limits there is food for thought as to whether he really is pleasing himself or acting under some governing power outside his knowledge and comprehension. I really do not know why I am writing in this strain. Certainly, when I started to write these lines I had no idea of getting on to a subject so open to contro versy. I felt rather in a good humour, and quite expected to find light reading flowing from my pen, yet here I am on a subject far beyond my powers to speak intelligently upon, far away from my subject of aviation, writing without the slightest idea of where it will lead me, writing thus because I feel that I have got to. Well, let it be so. Perhaps it will lead some where to something interesting. These are morning thoughts. I should have written this page yesterday, but I could not. try as I would, I could not write yesterday. This morning at four o'clock I must get up and write. No idea of why, or what I was going to write about. No lucky striking of a subject in my dreams that I must get up and put pen to paper before it is forgotten, just simply that I must get up and write, letting words come as they are coming, writing because I have got to write. These words will be read by people interested in m El aviation. People interested in aviation must read of aviation. They are possibly in aviation because they had to be. Aviation itself has perhaps come because it had to come. Had it not been for aviation, Germany might not have thought herself capable of world's conquest. Yet the very power relied upon is a factor in her undoing. And now daylight is breaking on- this chill November morning. With daylight should come a better understanding, between my pen and my brain, making clearer that of which I would tell. With daylight should come a better understanding between the nations on this world, who should live upon it each in enjoyment of the great life it has to> offer, and not fight to the death like wild beasts. With daylight, however, I cease to dream of a- world at peace, a world in which there shall be no more fighting and killing. This is not the first war, neither shall it be the last, for so long as men are born into life, so shall they fight one with the other, nation against nation until the end of all things.. Fought they always have, and fight they always will,, simply because it is outside their power to do other wise, and they have got to. Yet progress, and the march of time, whilst not able perhaps to greatly alter that which must be, may nevertheless be able- by the exercise of intelligence to guide the future into certain more convenient channels. ' Aviation has undoubtedly played a great part in- the present war, and will most assuredly play a greater one in the next, wherever it may happen to occur. It is even possible that in aviation we have the greatest factor towards an idealistic condition of things in which war shall be an impossibility. For it is thinkable, that with aviation brought to the- point of perfection it will reach in a few years' time, when all nations at the first call of war will be able to take the air in swarms, war could possibly assume quite a different aspect. So I look to aviation as one of the greatest things that matter in this and the coming time, and to this country to continue to hold that supremacy of the air which she has undoubtedly" achieved at the present moment. And with the daylight of understanding shotild come a closer knitting together of our own flying services, for it matters not the colour of a man's coat, whether it be blue or khaki, so that he get going at his task with a more set purpose and a better knowledge of where it leads than a " Dreamer " who must needs get up in the early morning to be led anywhere his pen happens to lead him. El EI Munificent Gift from Mauritius. ADDING to their previous splendid contributions towards the cost of the war, the Council of Government of Mauritius and the sugar planters have combined to present one million rupees to the Imperial Government to provide either 30 fight ing aeroplanes, or be used as a contribution towards the cost of an airship. 082
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