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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1464.PDF
In the inward direction, correspondence posted in Paris in the morning will normally reach London in time for delivery in the central districts during business hours on the same day, and will be delivered on arrival by express messengers without additional charge. Correspondence for provincial towns is forwarded by the next despatch from London, and will usually gain twenty-four hours in delivery. If it is known in advance that flight will be impossible on any day, a notice to that effect will be exhibited in the offices where correspondence is accepted for aerial transmission. Responsibility for registered correspondence will be admitted under the usual conditions, otherwise correspondence will be accepted at sender's risk. These points cover all the essential conditions of the new service, and, belated as the decision seems to be, we congratulate the Postmaster-General on having at last realised the potential value of an aerial ser vice as an aid to the quicker transaction of business. There is one point, however, on which we are by no means in accord with the official conditions of the service. Why half-a-crown an ounce, in addition to the amount of the foreign postage ? It seems to us that this will militate very greatly against the success of the venture. If it were necessary we should be content to accept it as one of the disabilities in separable from pioneering a new mode of transport. But it is not necessary, because it has been shown by figures which are beyond dispute that such a service can be made in due time to pay its way and show a profit at sixpence per ounce. Far better to charge the latter figure and carry, let us say, fifteen hundred sixpenny letters than one hundred at half-a-crown. Even if it were not possible to make an immediate profit on such a basis, surely it is up to the Post Office to run the service anyway as an encouragement to civil aviation. We have heard a great deal about the amount of such encouragement the Government intends to give the new movement, but when it comes to the test it seems that the departments with the best opportunity of affording it adopt the rule of Shy- lock, and will do nothing except in return for their pound of flesh. A most interesting document was issued The Future as a Parliamentary Paper at the end of A i°ti *ast week> m the shape of the Report In the to the United States Secretary for War United States of the American Aviation Mission which visited Europe last July. The Mission consulted, in England, France and Italy, Ministers, naval, military and Air Force authorities and other experts, and after a complete study of all the forms of organisation adopted by the three countries, seem to have returned to America with a deep-seated conviction that aviation must be encouraged by all possible means. They report that : " Immediate action is necessary to safeguard the interests of the United States, to preserve for the Government some benefit of the great aviation expenditures made during the period of the War, and to prevent a vitally necessary industry from entirely disappearing. Ninety per cent, of the industry created during the War has been liquidated. Unless some definite policy is adopted by the Government, it is inevitable that the remaining ten per cent, will also disappear." This might just as well have been written about the state of the aviation industry in this country and of NOVEMBER 13, 1919 the urgent need for the formulation of some concrete and definite policy by our own Government. That, however, in passing. The Mission recommends the " concentration of the air activities of the United States, military, naval and civilian, within the direc tion of a single Government agency created for the purpose, co-equal in importance with the Departments of War, Navy and of Commerce, called, for the pur poses of identification, the National Air Service." It is not a little significant that the American Mission should recommend thus definitely the adoption of a scheme of organisation of the United States Air Service exactly on the general lines of our own. It is axiomatic that the looker-on sees most of the game, and these American officers and officials who con stituted the Mission, acute observers all of them, have manifestly studied very closely the organisa tions existing in the three countries to which they were accredited, and have deliberately arrived at the conclusion that our own Air Ministry organisation, faulty as it may be in certain details, is basically the one and only proper way of dealing with the matter they had under review. We need hardly say that this is a point of view in which we most wholly concur. Indeed, when it is remembered that it was this journal which took the lead in urging upon the Government the separation of the Air Service from the Navy and Army and its organisation under a single authority, it will be clear that we could do nothing else but agree. More especially is this the case when it is further remembered how the separate organisa tion justified itself during the last year of the War after dual control had well-nigh ruined our chances of victory in the air. The Mission seems to have been greatly Points for impressed by the view taken here of American t^e future Gf air power, and its influence Government ,, i ,.• ' c it- Consideration011 tne course of the wars of the time to come. In their Report they say :— Great Britain considers the dominance of the air as im portant as that of the seas, and is avowedly planning a definite policy of aerial development to that end. Owing to the co ordination for more than two years of her aircraft activities, she is well in the lead in practically every phase of aerial development. In any future war victory must incline to the belligerent able first to achieve and later to maintain supremacy in the air. In England, France and Italy sentiment is undoubtedly in favour of the centralisation of aircraft development under one authoritative head. Difference of opinion has been encountered only in the matter of Army and Navy personnel and in the question of the independent fighting force. England holds the initiative, and is building her Royal Air Force co-equal with the Army and Navy. With proper Governmental encouragement, rapid progress in the development of aircraft seems inevitable. There is vital need for the United States to formulate a definite, comprehensive, and continuing policy for its development in every phase. Great Britain's plan of organisation is not perfect, but undoubtedly it stands today the most comprehensive Govern mental mechanism yet set up by any nation for the encourage ment, upbuilding, direction, and control of its air resources. This organisation has been born of five bitter years of trial, mistake, experience, and progress. It is the product of the best brains in the British Empire focussed under the spur of national need and the demand of the British people. America may well study it carefully. In so far as concerns the first paragraph of this quotation, we sincerely trust that the impression made upon the Mission was conveyed by responsible Ministers of the Crown. We are fully aware that it represents the opinions of the bulk of the officers of 1466
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