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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0609.PDF
MARCH 29TH, 1945 FLIGHT 345 BRITISH AIR TRANSPORT had been so much disorganisation and confusion in an era of private enterprise controls that it had been necessary, time after time, to establish 'Royal Commissions and committees of inquiry in order to get some kind of order from this confusion. Apparently some hon. Members desired that in civil aviation we should start at the beginning of this old story and work through the same process. The Government had sadly failed in this respect. The White Paper was one of those typically mongrel devices they had come to expect from the Coalition, and it was to be hoped that Members would feel that the Coalition had gone about as tar as it could go. He drew a comparison between the White Paper scheme and what had happened in other spheres. The claim that railways could contribute experience, but it was not the shareholders, nor even the directors, who had experience of handling booking offices and travel agencies, driving trains or catering. It was the administrative staff, the workers. If that were so, what was there to prevent the Government adver- tising and securing the services of those people who could serve the State as well as they could serve private owners ? There was competition with foreigners, but none between rail and shipping interests and the B.O.A.C. Therefore he did not see the necessity for bringing in this concern in order to provide efficiency within the industry itself. The Government had come to the House with a stratagem. It was an expedient, just as the 1941 Act was an expedient to avoid the inevitable creation of a nationalised service. B.O.A.C. Control CAPT. PLUGGE said he had listened to the many speeches that had been made, and he thought all but one had been in severe and truthful criticism of the White Paper. He thought there was one sentence in the White Paper which spelled its doom: "The Government are convinced that the policy of the single chosen instrument ... is unsuited to deal with the great ex- pansion of the future." Now there were to be three chosen instruments, but were they really three ? He thought B.O.A.C. would have control. It was a majority holder in the whole group of the three branches. He estimated that B.O.A.C. would have 170 per cent, holdings out of the 300 per cent, that represented the three-branched chosen instrument. Directors were not allowed to be elected freely; they were subject to the veto of the Minister, which, in reality, would mean the veto of the B.O.A.C. If the chairman of the B.O.A.C. were to say; " I do not like that particular man who has been put forward by the railways," then the Minister would alsosay that he did not wish that man to be on the board. What we needed was competition among ourselves. TheWhite Paper said it was compiled to avoid competition. What greater competition could we have than that of all the foreignlines, some twenty of which would be competing with the one suggested European corporation ? He suggested we shouldhave a licensing authority. There should be an independent tribunal for appeals against the licensing authority. The generalconsiderations should be: a company should fly British aircraft only. It should have sufficient capital to run its line efficientlyover a certain period of years, even at a loss. It must satisfy the authorities from the point of view of safety measures. Itshould employ British staffs only. MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FREDERICK SYKES complimented theGovernment on the appointment of a Minister for Civil Aviation, but found himself unable to contribute to the chorus ofapproval of the White Paper which, he thought, would need a good many amendments before passing into law. He wasagainst monopolies and thought the task of B.O.A.C. ought to be lessened and consolidated rather than enlarged. Hewould have preferred to have five or six corporations instead of three. He deplored the suggestion that there should be amonopoly of maintenance, arguing that unless maintenance is under the company which operates the airline it cannot beresponsible for the airline operation itself. He hoped that after the war a licensing authority would beset up which would have completely independent status. He would like to see one or two companies dealing with thiscountry and with Europe, one for Northern Europe and one for Southern Europe. He would have one to South Americaand one to North America, one to South Africa and one to India and Australia. MAJOR MCCALLUM lamented the omission of Scotland fromany consideration in the White Paper, and MAJOR NEVEN- SPENCE paid a tribute to those who had blazed the trail in theNorth of Scotland, Gandar-Dower and Fresson. They had risked their wealth and their lives, and yet the White Paperspoke in contemptuous terms of these independent operators. MR. LENNOX-BOYD, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministryof Aircraft Production, replied for the Government. He said the plans had been supported by the National Government andby all parties, and thought it therefore unlikely that there would be violent changes of policy after, the General Election.He felt the White Paper plan was a compromise in its very nature and was something acceptable to all sections of theHouse.. Concerning Air Commodore Helmore's plea for priority toaircrews, he uttered a word of warning, and said that for the immediate future only some 1,000 people would be requiredfor all the civil aircrews. The Capetown Conference (Cabled Exclusively to "Flight") SITTING behind closed doors, the South African AirTransport Conference in its first day apparently_ settled the most important questions in connection with an air service between Britain and the Union. As soon as possible a joint service of British and Union aircraft will be established between London and Johan- nesburg. For this. South Africa, and possibly Britain, will use aircraft of British manufacture. Control of the ser- vice will be exercised by South Africa to a point just south of Nairobi, with the rest of the route under the control of Britain. This service will be regarded-as a trunk service, as compared with regional services, and will be the binding link between African territories, carrying all freight and passengers down Africa from Europe, North Africa, Asia, Australia, and perhaps America. In respect of air traffic to South Africa, Britain will be more or less in the monopolistic position which existed before the war. The service will begin in July, it is hoped. Aircraft will fly night and day, landing only to take on passengers and freight or fuel, and completing the journey from London to Johannesburg within forty-five hours. The service, probably weekly to begin with, may later become bi-weekly and later still dailj/, with Avro Yorks. The tentative route is Johannesburg, Kasamo, Nairobi, Khartoum, Cairo, Malta and London. Later when the aerodrome is ready, landings wiBvbe made at Salisbury, Rhodesia, instead ofj£»6amo, and/t is also planned appar- ently to substitutc^uJiab later forffilalta. Summing up the initial work Tof the conference, the Governor of KenyaTand leader of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda and ZanzibarwdSTegation, Sir Philip Mitchell, told Reuter: "I am sorry I cannot give you sensations, be- cause this is a.family party which is getting on so well that there can be no sensations." Sir Philip said the pur- pose of the conference more than anything else is "to find out what is expected of us." '' Our object is to participate as a group of territories and as good neighbours with other commonwealth coun- tries for the purpose of giving the public the best possible air service at the cheapest possible price." Sir Philip revealed that any Kenya domestic services' would be run by commercial management " under control of govern- ment." He said that Kenya is planning to attract great tourist traffic by air, and legislatiop was now before the Kenya legislature for the creation of "a most astounding, spec- tacular game reserve with a greater variety of flora and fauna than anywhere else in the world." Nairobi, it is hoped, will become one of the great air junctions of the
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