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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0124.PDF
FEBRUARY 8, 19171 fitted the definition of the round peg in the square hole. It is bound to be so under a system in which it counts for far more to have a friend at court than to possess the highest possible qualifications for the particular post that happens to be going. It is not only that what the Far Eastern calls " friend-pidgin " counts for far too much, but that the whole want of system is dead wrong. True, we have had to im- provise a vast machinery for the-conduct of the war, and where hasty improvisation is the order of the day mistakes are inevitable. But even so, it might havo been thought that the first thing necessary to success- ful improvisation was what we must call, for want of a better term, the establishment of a clearing house for brains. We made no end of fuss about National Registration. It was going to place the authorities in possession of all the information necessary to fit every man and woman in the country into his or her proper place in the scheme of things. It had the makings of the " clearing house " as we visualise it, but it has not worked to that end at all. Instead, we see every day of our lives men being taken for the Army who would be of incalculably greater use in some civilian capacity, and men being fitted into civilian jobs who have no business anywhere but in the fighting forces of the Crown. To our way of thinking, the mess and muddle that have characterised the administration of the; Military Service Act and the Munitions of War Act have been by far the most deplorable aspects of the war. It says very little for our national efficiency that we cannot manage better than we do. r ]n'^-Wlicn we fell into prophetic vein last Postal '" week> and foresaw with the mind's eye Aeroplane. our postal and passenger public services being conducted by means of aircraft, we scarcely thought that within a week we should receive the first object-lesson in the correctness of our forecast. True, that object-lesson is only in a small way, but it is nevertheless there to point the moral— if not to adorn the tale. We read that the United States Government has just entered into a firm contract, in consideration of an annual sum, for the carriage by aeroplane of mails and passengers between Nome, on the Alaskan coast, and a point 381 miles inland. Under the contract, two trips a week are to be made, and the service will bring the interior of Alaska three -weeks nearer the outside world than it has been in the past. Apparently, the service will meet with considerable difficulties, since the country which has to be traversed is mountainous and there are no level tracts on which a landing could be made in case of necessity. Moreover, we are told that the snow in winter lies from 25 to 30 feet deep over the whole country, so that even if an intermediate landing were made, there would be very serious difficulties in the way of the machine getting off again. However, the contractor seems to be sanguine of his ability to comply with the terms of his arrangement with the postal authorities, and has already made a successful trial trip, carrying four passengers. The principal point that strikes us in connection with this, the first regular contract of the kind that has been made, is the wonderful saving of time effected by the use of the aeroplane. Three weeks saved over a distance of less than four hundred miles is an eloquent pointer of the possibilities of aircraft in reaching the less accessible parts of the world. And if such a service as this can save so much time in Alaska, and over so short a distance, what then would be the saving of time in working postal aeroplanes from, say, the Eastern coast of Africa to the remoter settlements a thousand miles inland, to which the only present access is by bush tracks ? Comparatively small as the enterprise which forms our test may be, it gives a great deal of food for thought for the future. There are those who argue that after the war there will be a slump in aircraft—that the demands of Governments for aeroplanes will practically cease and with them the only market. The answer to that argument is in part given by the initiation of this tiny enterprise in the far north of the American continent. It requires very little imagination to realise that this is only the pioneer of a thousand such enterprises. Beyond this concrete example of the use of the aeroplane for the purposes of the mails, the French Government is engaged in a discussion of the possi- bilities of making use of an aeronautical service commercially after the war, especially for the national and international postage services. A. Committee of the Minister of Commerce has been appointed, whose terms of reference are defined thus :— " To promote advances in aeronautics, and with this object to contribute in peace towards the develop- ment of the aviation industry that originated with the war, and that constitutes a form of national work, and further to exploit the advances made for spreading the influence of the French genius. The special problems that in the view of the Committee demand an early solution are to determine the price of a service per kilometre, the possible utilisation of aeroplanes., the character of the transport service, the practicable routes in France, her Colonies, and Allied countries, the character of the machine that will be most serviceable, and the organisation of stations, relays, &c." Once again we have an eloquent object-lesson in the possibilities of the future. Here in the midst of a great war, when all our energies and those of our Allies are being turned to the purposes of the war, we see one of the Great Powers finding time and making opportunity to discuss the future of commercial aeronautics. At least this is an argument that in the eyes of responsible Governments aeronautics has well emerged from its experimental stages. We scarcely feel that any apology is due The Growth f or • our periodical wanderings outside Bureaucracy.tne scope of those interests to which FLIGHT is primarily devoted. In times like these it is due by every organ of opinion that it should assist in the moulding of the larger issues which so intimately concern every one of us, and it is with that conviction that we feel impelled to branch off into the discussion of subjects that, in more normal times, we should be content to leave to others, whose more intimate concern they are. On several occasions recently we have directed attention to the serious danger. that threatens the nation as a result of the rapid growth of bureaucracy, which is tin-owing out its tentacles in ever-widening directions. We see its reflex in the mania for wild and indiscriminate sequestration of hotels, clubs and ducal mansions for the housing of new and yet more bureaucratic departments of the Government. We see it in the unjust and oppressive interferences with rights and the liberty of the subject which are be- coming the delight of the official mind when riding 124
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