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Aviation History
1923
1923 - 0462.PDF
AUGUST 2, 1923 PAPERS AT THE INTERNATIONAL AIR CONFERENCE Future of Air Mail Services BY BRIG.-GEN. F. H. WILLIAMSON, C.B.E. IN the paper which he read before the International AirConference, Brig.-Gen F. H. Williamson, C.B.E., Director of Mails, General Post Office, said that there was little scope forthe development of an internal air mail service ; the distances in the British Isles were so short and the existing means ofcommunication, which have largely been developed by the railway and steamship companies, in conjunction with thePost Office, with a view to rapidity of postal communication, were so complete and so good that air services, in spite of theirvery high speed, could offer littie advantage to the public. It would, of course, be possible for letters posted duringbusiness hours in any large town to be delivered in business hours at any place within 300 or 400 miles ; but the demandfor such a service, competing as it would have to do with the rivalry of the telegraph and telephone, was extremely small,and would afford no justification for the establishment of an air service for postal purposes only. The same consideration applied, with almost equal force,to the air mail services now maintained between London on the one hand and Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Rotterdam andAmsterdam on the other. The advantage afforded to the sender was, on the whole, substantially greater than wouldbe possible in the Inland service ; but here again existing means of communication were so good that there was prac-tically no public demand for an air mail. The advantage of the high speed of the aeroplane increasedin proportion to the distance covered, and if night flying proved to be practicable there was no doubt that the postalservice could be materially improved to places within a radius of, say, 700 to 800 miles. If business correspondenceposted at the end of the day in London could be delivered early next morning in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague,Vienna, Berne, Milan, or Marseilles, the inducement to the public to send its letters by air would clearly be enormouslyincreased. It must be borne in mind that the conveyance of the wholeof the mails by air was a very unlikely development unless and until there was a marked change in the cost of air transportand in the financial limitations under which postal services were compelled to work, limitations which required some sortof correspondence between the postage charged and the cost of transport. Moreover, an essential condition of a mailservice was regularity under all conditions, in all weathers, and at all times of the year. It was commonly assumed thatif a method of transporting mails could be devised which was considerably more rapid, even if more expensive, than any-thing already in existence, there was an immediate public demand that it should be used for the carriage of mails.There was, of course, some truth in this ; but the experience of the Post Office indicated that the importance attached tothe mere speed of mail communication could easily be ex- aggerated. It was certainly a fact that a proportion ofbusiness correspondence was of great urgency, and that a certain amount of business now done by telegraph would beattracted to the post if the post were speeded up. But even of business correspondence a considerable proportion was notof any particular urgency. Even in the case of such important mail as shipping documents, so long as the shipper could posthis papers a day or two after the ship carrying the cargo had left, and could be sure of their arriving at the port of destina- Farewell Luncheon to Mr. J. H. Narbeth ON July 25 Mr. j. H. Narbeth, C.B., C.B.E., M.V.O., R.C.N.C., Senior Assistant Director of Naval Construction, Admiralty, and Chairman of the Joint Technical Committee on Aviation Arrangements in H.M. Ships, was entertained to luncheon by the members of the Committee on the occasion of his retirement from office ; Mr. Narbeth having presided over the Committee during the past five years with marked success and unfailing urbanity. The following members, former members, and guests were present :—Commander R. B. Davies, V.C., D.S.O., A.F.C., R.N., Sqdn. Leader L. Tomlinson, D.S.O., A.F.C., R.A.F., Sqdn. Leader D. C. S. Evill, D.S.O., A.F.C., R.A.F., W. G. Sanders, Esq., R.C.N.C, C. J. W. Hopkins, Esq., M.B.E., R.C.N.C, J. D. Coales, Esq., D.Sc, Flight Lieut. W. R. D. Acland, D.F.C., A.F.C., R.A.F., Flight Lieut. W. F. Dickson, D.S.O., A.F.C., R.A.F., Mr. L. W. Bryant, B.Sc, National tion before the cargo, he was content and asked for nothingmore. Business communications again were by no means the whole of the mail. There was a very large mass of privatecorrespondence which was of no .urgency at all and on which in all probability the senders would, as a rule, pay no addi-tional postage however great the gain of time afforded by an air service. In fact, if only a service of absolute regularityand reasonable speed was afforded the general public were quite satisfied and attached no great importance to the timetaken for the letter to reach its destination. !t was probaDle, thereiort thav lor a ;ong t me to come airmails must be limited to urgent correspondence on whicn a special fee was charged and that such correspondence wouldonly be a relatively small fraction of the totai mail. The actual volume of air mail carried would depend on threefactors : regularity gain in time, and cost ot conveyance ; that is, exactly the same conditions as those on which thedevelopment of passenger and goods traffic would depend, and to which the technical development of commercialaviation must be directed. There was one school of thought which saw in the carriageof mails the mainstay of aerial transport. The expectations of this school were probably too sanguine There was moretruth in the view that the development of aviation must depend on the extent to which it could attract passenger andfreight traffic, and, to a lesser degree, perhaps, on two political considerations, namely, national defence and the improve-ment of Imperial communications. In other words the development of aviation would be analogous to that ofrailway and steamship communication throughout the Empire during the last hundred years. The policy of the Post Officewould be the same as that followed in the case of steamships and railways. The Post Office would make the fullest possibleuse of existing air transport which public requirements demanded for that proportion of the mails for which thesender required speedy transmission ; in certain outlying districts where no other means of communication wereavailable, the whole mail might be sent by air ; at a later stage contracts would be made with the Air Transport Com-panies for their services to be run on a schedule convenient to the mail service ; but, on the whole, there was little pro-bability that the conveyance of mails would be more than a " side-line " giving a regular and useful supplement to-earnings from other sources It seemed not unreasonable to anticipate that for thecarriage of mails on the main Imperial routes the future lies- with the airship. This would not exclude the aeroplane,which would perform a useful function in acting as feeder to- the airship on branch routes. One might look forward with afair degree of confidence to future Imperial airship routes to Canada and possibly the West Indies, on the one hand ; andto Egypt, India, the Straits Settlements, Australia and New Zealand, on the other; with connecting airships from Egyptto West, Central and South Africa, and aeroplane services working from Uganda (for East Africa and Zanzibar), fromBombay, Calcutta, Singapore and Port Darwin, to carry mails for important centres away from the main routes. Itwas perhaps not a rash prophecy to predict that the next generation would see its railways and steamships supple-mented by a complete system of Imperial air communication. Physical Laboratory, and Mr. W. A. D. Forbes, R.C.N.C., while Major R. E. Penny and Flight Lieut. Bryer, who wer& unavoidably prevented from attending, sent cordial and appreciative messages. Commander Davies presided at the luncheon, and voiced the appreciation of the Navy for the outstanding services rendered by Mr. Narbeth in regard to the development of naval aeronautics, while the sentiments and goodwill of the Royal Air Force were embodied in an appreciative letter handed in by the Air Force officers attending. This inter-departmental Committee of Admiralty and Air Force officers, and its important work in the development of the technical details of aircraft carriers, has hardly been heard of outside its immediate sphere, but it has worked throughout with efficiency, zeal and complete harmony, unaffected by the political differences between the two services that have been so much to the front of late. 462
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