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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 2256.PDF
•468 FLIGHT OCTOBER 29TH, 1942 Topics of the Day WORDS AND DEEDS Preparing for a Better To-morrow : State Control or State Ownership for Airlines ? : Subsidising Inefficiency : Educating the "Little Man" Out of Parochial Ideas PERHAPS it is not so extraordinary that words so often tend to lose their original meanings. The power of '' natural'' (as opposed to forced) propaganda is fairly considerable, and, furthermore, handsome is as handsome does. If, fifteen hundred years ago, the good men who were labelled "Saints" had consistently behaved badly, then the word's present meaning would be completely different. But most of the altered words have, in fact, lost their genuine meanings through what I am pleased to call '' natural propaganda.'' What kind,* of picture, for instance, does the word " Suffragette^' produce in the minds of those old enough to remertfber the word at all? Probably that of a wild- eyed, dishevelled female chained to some railings, or a tough, hatchet-faced woman hurling stink-bombs from the gallery of the House of Commons. Yet the word could quite as easily describe a quiet, good-looking and intelligent young person who was merely advanced enough to think that women should have an equal right with men to arrange the world in which they had to live. Again, a " Communist" is not necessarily a person who would forcibly tear the existing world,-apart, taking from those who '' have '' and giving, without regard to sense and order, to the many who "have not." He or she may merely be a person who believes in a system of all for all, and who is sufficiently out of touch with horrid reality to believe that Smart Alecs and Go-Getters can be in stantaneously educated out of their bad habits, or that everybody could be encouraged to work without the in centive of worldly gain. In very, very small type, one might almost add that Communism could be the practical application of Christianity—if this was a world in which everybody could be trusted to behave rationally and fairly to his or her fellow-creatuies. State Control One can think of dozens of similarly refashioned words ; I have merely picked two extreme examples. If you want one working the other way, you have only to think of "Conservative." If you accused somebody of being con servative in these days you would be as good as telling him that he was an old-fashioned dead-beat; but nobody is in the least disturbed by the label Conservative (with a capital " C "), because the party of that name may, at any particular moment, be far more progressive and reasonable than any other. / Less marked, but still noticeable, arerthe average person's reactions to such expressions as " Controlled Private Enter prise " or "State Owned." They cause both snub and patrician nose to wrinkle. I know that, to me, the first expression savours of compromise, and the second of nine- thirty to four-thirty inefficiency. The result, perhaps, of previous experience of such things, when '' control'' has merely tied the hands of private enterprise and prevented it from doing just the things it is really good at doing, and when the "State" has consisted so largely of half-baked time-servers who have been interested only ifl the regularity of their incomes and the safety of their jojfe. Private enterprise does inevitably produce results, but it is liable to run away with itself and, unchecked, can produce the most unpleasant results both for me (as the ordinary person) and for the enterprising people them selves ; it is not much good building an amazingly efficient factory to make private aircraft at a low price if nobody has any money to spend—because the purchasing power has gone into this and other factories or because somebody else, in a very enterprising mood, has juggled with the exchange and reduced the value of the chits which are used as currency. State ownership or control is necessary for the operation of such businesses as airline concerns which cannot be expected always to pay for themselves, but which pay handsomely when considered in -terms of the prosperity of the entire community. And, given the right people in charge, there is no earthly reason why even a State-owned concern should not be efficieat. Provided he is interested and feels that his job is ajl important one, the average person will always work emremely hard, regardless of his income. But he must hav#-*mie Incent've—whether cash, honour or interest. & ^V\ Publi\ Uts^ty Airlines One y the most significant facts in the history of com mercial developmen^duftng the two decades before this war v&s that''' cipitar^ could not easily be found for air I trangpor* enterprises. Jfo direct and unreasonably large returns c\uld in'anv cafce be expected from them, and the bankers and bjrokers consequently fought shy. Therein lay an example of the wtfekness of private enterprise when it is left entirely to i^elf; the '' every man for himself'' system fell down whjn the returns were going to be spread over the whole community. The go-getters are not par ticularly good at casting bread upon the waters—and why should they be expected to be? Only when a subsidy was promised—or (in the case of more daring speculators) when, after careful lobbying, it could reasonably be expected— were the Big Shots interested. The word "subsidy" stinks to high heaven and should never again be used. It has become a description of the sort of thing that is parsimoniously doled out to feeble key industries until such a time as these have managed to pull themselves together and come into the money. In my opinion, airlines will never " come into the money " unless they are considered as national and international enter prises for the good of the community as a whole. Nobody expects the police force to pay for itself (though some motorists used to wonder whether it did) ; nobody expects a solid cash return for medical research ; nobody expects a profit from a dam or a reservoir; and certainly nobody expects a profit from a good long war. But the returns are not quite invisible—they are spread over the whole business community. Post-war Effort J If the Anglo-Saxon races had put as much productive effort (I don't care to use the dated word "capital") in a year of airline organisation as they are now putting into a week of this war, some real and tangible results would have been achieved. Experience has shown that this air transport business is one of those in which only really large outlays can produce complete results. The ground or ganisation must be on a gargantuan scale before the thing can be run with sufficient regularity and safety to be attractive ; then you can begin to think of smaller profits and quicker returns. The international airline of the future will be like a wartime air force—cost and effort must not be counted until the results have been achieved. It is just not possible to run a long-distance air service on parochial lines with scratch equipment. The air base at, say, M'Pingo mast be as proportionately well equipped as that for London, and the feeder services must have machines as good, in their own way, as those used on the main line. There must never be a repetition of the days when an important
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