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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0606.PDF
344 FLIGHT MARCH 29TH, 1945 BRITISH AIR TRANSPORT ot pounds sterling per annum. In contra-distinction, in America, ill 1943, the internal airlines repaid in taxes oil their profits from air mail no less than 33 million dollars, or more than £8 million. It was logical to suppose that we could mould into B.O.A.C. something which would cost the taxpayer less if we could join with it organisations which had learned to run their transport economically. As chairman for two years of the Joint Air Transport. Committee of the F.B.I., the Asso- ciation of British Chambers of Commerce, and the London Chamber of Commerce, he had found in the railway and ship- ping companies a single-minded desire to render service in the air transport era. They did not ask the Government for a monopoly. The monopoly was forced upon them Ijy the White Paper. He thought it a great mistake that there should be any monopoly area within the White Paper scheme. Outside this country we should have competition from the foreigners, but why could we not have some internal competition ? He sug- gested that Scotland, which had been running a high tempera- ture on the subject of Prestwick, should form a Scottish Air Transport Organisation. Thus there could be competition within the British Isles. Sir Oliver then argued, as did we in our Editorial Comment recently, that since the scheme visualises a comprehensive schedule of routes and services, there will be a precious small chance of other organisations coming in. That was a fundamental ^defect in the White Paper. It was essential that young men be given an oppor- tunity to come in. They would chafe at the lack of enterprise in the three corporations. People would be willing to back them with money. Space and Systems MR. WILFRID ROBERTS said three different views had been expressed. Sir Oliver Simmonds wanted to get away from the present system. Mr. Hore-Belisha wanted the American system of many independent oompanies woiking for profit, licensed by tribunals. The B.O.A.C., to do them justice, had never had an opportunity to operate. Did Mr. Hore-Belisha want the American system for Britain alone or for the Empire? Thi American system worked well because they had a great land continent. Was Great Britain, or even Great Britain and the European services, big enough to accommodate the intro- duction of the American system? He thought there might be two internal airlines, one operating on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, and that would be an advantage. He doubted that the two would experience very much competition, but at least we should have comparison. He did not find much fault with the South American proposals. They would be up against fierce competition, presumably from Pan America. He thought it high time the railways were nationalised, and \ve should leave a new and upcoming industry like civil aviation more freedom. He would like to see the railways limited to less than a 50 per cent, interest, and find enter- prising people who would risk their capital, possibly aircralt makers as well as operators. He thought the prevailing defeatism ill-founded. Surely our war record entitled us to expect that, sooner or later, we should catch up with our com- petitors. He did not regard luxury as essential on short routes, and thought we could adapt some of our wartime air- craft; that would be better than buying expensive American aircraft. Mr. Roberts wanted to know whether we proposed to operate in the Caribbean Sea, between the islands in the Pacific, and between Canada and Australia, or whether there was inter- national agreement that we should not do so. As to the Minister's statement about choosing at the time of the General Election, it was a difficult situation for the companies which were asked to risk their capital by putting it into companies out of which they could not take it. LT. COL. SIR THOMAS MOORE referred to what he called a very serious omission from the White Paper: there was no. mention of an airline either in Scotland, for Scotland, or operated by Scotland. Scotland had its own shipping lines and built the best ships for the English shipping lines. Scotland, with its vast experience, its great capacity and its highly skilled craftsmen, was not going to be left out. All the airlines proposed in the White Paper, except perhaps B.O.A.C., were problematical of success. In Scotland they had a civil organisation, built up over nine years and at present employing 5,000 people, with invaluable knowledge and experience, which no shipping nor railway company could have. H,e referred to Scottish Aviation, Ltd. (Hansard reports it as Scotland Aviation.—ED.). He wanted to know why this great organisation in Scotland had been ignored. He warned the Government that Scotland would not stand for this narrow Socialist policy. MR. BOWLES urged that the whole matter be taken not only out of the hands of private enterprise, but out of the hands of any Government, even out of the hands of Continental Powers like the United States, or even out of the hands of a body representing Pan-European Airways. He believed the matter had to be put on a world basis, and that nothing smaller than that would suffice to maintain the peace of the world. He asked why the Director-General of Civil Aviation did not go to Chicago? The majority of Lord Swinton's assistants were connected with the military side of the Air Ministry. MR. HENRY BROOKE said he spoke as a director of the Southern Railway, as he thought it right the House should have on record an authoritative statement about the railways' position". Referring to Air Comdre. Helmore's plea for first priority to be given to aircrews of the R.A.F., .so far as the railways were concerned, that was their intention. They desired to obtain as many suitable men from the R.A.F. as they could. The real test of the proposals was not whether they pleased this or that interest or party; it was the value of the public service which the corporations could render. He was grateful to Sir Oliver Simmonds for his independent testimony, and would add his own first-hand testimony that the railways were dead keen on making a success of whatever opportunity the House decided to give them in the air. He warned Members not to argue too swiftly from American experience. America had three times the population, the dis^ tances were much greater, and potential attraction of air travel was much greater than here. A whole collection of small com- panies could not do our job. There had to be both financial and technical strength behind the companies. •MRS.. MAVIS TATE thought that she was the only Member of her party who voted against the continuance of the subsidy to Imperial Airways until 1953; she did so because even then she was against the policy of the single chosen instrument. To-day she was unhappy because the same complacency seemed to run through the White Paper. She regretted the very narrow aspect from which so many people regarded the problem to-day. She was not wholly satisfied with the White Paper because although the policy of a single chosen instru- ment had been given up, they were to have three chosen instruments and she thought there would be little improve- ment if they were going to be more or less under one control. There still appeared to loom the ossified brain and the dead, skinny hand of bureaucratic control in this scheme. We should not ignore the fact that although the White Paper had been received with praise in this country, it had also been received with hoots of joy in America. She had made no bones of her intention to capture 70 or 80 per cent, of the traffic on world's air routes, and if she regarded this White Paper as so satis- factory it was worth our while to take a second look at it. South American Service Concerning the South Atlantic route, Mrs. Tate recalled that the late Sir Philip Sassoon had stood at the Box and given a categorical promise that this country would fly to South America by the spring of 1938. When 1939 came we were still paying the French and German lines £37,000 to carry our mails across the South Atlantic. She described as appalling the paragraph in the White Paper dealing with this route, anr^ quoted it as follows :— "The trunk route from the United Kingdom to South America, presents a new field for British civil aviation. It is one which our long and close relations with the States of that Continent make it essential that we should enter." Mrs. Tate argued that if we were to build up our foreign trade, Empire unity, Empire communications, our prestige and our influence, we must give first-class service. To do that we must have on our routes the best aircraft that could be manu- factured, and she argued that it would be many years before we could produce them. She pleaded for an appreciation of, the important part women could play, as hostesses, for instance. MR. HYND thought it surprising that the Minister should have made the statement that to organise civil aviation in this country under one central operational unit was too vast an • enterprise to be considered. They had a few days ago a re- markably fine statement from the First Lord of the Admiralty, who made no apology for the size of his operational, units or instruments. There was no great enthusiasm in the House for the White Paper. A new age was dawning, and it might have been expected that the Government would approach this in an entirely new way which would enable them to avoid the mistakes of the past in all branches of surface transport. There
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