[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR 7 — Sir Leo Chiozza Money's
attitude towards Aviation resembles closely that of the Editor of the Quarterly Review of 1825, writing about RailwayS : " What can be more palpably abiurd and ridiculous thin the prospect held out of locomo‘ tives travelling twice as fast as stage coaches . . . We- trust Parliainent will limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which is as great as can be ventured on with safety."
The same attitude of mind was displayed when, in 1906, a contemporary of the Daily Mail published a derisive article about the Daily Mail's offer of £10,000 for a flight from London to Manchester, in which it was said : " Our own offer of £10,000,000 to the flying machine of any description Whatever that flies five miles from London and back to the point of departure still holds good."
: That was only twenty-one years ago. This year the re- organized Air League of the British Empire is celebrating the eighth anniversary of the inauguration of commercial flying. At least two European commercial air routes and several in the Dominions are paying their way, and the Dutch K.L.M. is nearly self-supporting. The Lufthansa claims to have made a small net profit this year.
Sir Leo says correctly enough that the British tax-payer pays part of the fare of every passenger who flies from London to Paris [if travelling by Imperial Airways] and asks : " Did railways thus begin, or steamships ? " The answer is yes, and furthermore, it is true to-day. A large number of steamship lines in many countries are subsidized by Government. The cost to the Americans of their mercantile marine has run into many millions during the last few years—and this after a century of steamship practice as against eight years of air commerce. The air mails of the U.S.A. pay their way, and within a year or two France and Great Britain will be carrying their mails to remote Dominions and making profits.
When Sir Leo asserts that commercial aviation is sub- sidized for military reasons he may possibly be right. If he is, he gives an additional reason for booming aviation. Great Britain wants peace, perhaps more genuinely than any other country, but until the League of Nations controls a police force such as suggested by Professor MacDougal, this country must develop her defensive powers both for her own sake and for the safety of Europe. If, as Professor MacDougal suggests in his thought-provoking little book, Janus, the League of Nations were furnished by its State members with aircraft in proportion to their present contributions to the League's funds, and if no commercial machine were allowed to have a speed exceeding 100 m.p.h. while the League's air squadrons were unlimited in speed and size, then the mischief- makers of the world could be kept in check. Effective re- striction of the world's armaments and true economy becomes possible through aviation. (The cost of one battleship would provide about 10,000 military aeroplanes equipped with gas sprayers and incendiary grenades.) In the meantime we peace-lovers must develop commer- cial aviation and build up the latest form of transport, thus forging new links with our Dominions by bringing Canada's capital within two and a half days of our doors instead of nine days, Cape Town within six days instead of seventeen or nineteen, and Australia within eleven days in place of thirty- one.
What aviation means to our great territories is already being shown in Australia, where the Derby-Perth air line covers 1,442 miles in two and a half days as compared with an average of thirteen days by coastal steamer. These Australian air routes are opening up the regions through which they pass and supplying the settler with the essential link with civiliza- tion ; his letters and papers reach him regularly instead of by despatch rider at many weeks' interval, and if he or his family need medical assistance, a telegram will bring a doctor by air. Let Sir Leo consider what the world outside these little Isles is doing. Last year German commercial aircraft flew 8,816,069 miles with the loss of only one life.
It is useless for the Victorians to lament the passing of a leisured age ; the era of speed is upon us. We must cultivate more of the Elizabethan spirit, with its capacity to look over wide spaces, rather than listen to the croakings of those who feel the draught of progress.—I am, Sir, &c., Air League of the British Empire, Astor House, Aidwych, W.C. 2.
NORMAN TIIWAITES.
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