Debates o Civil Air Policy 7 Lucid statements expoun ng
nmenes plan for civil aviation were made by Viscount Swinton in the Houge of Lords last week and by Sir Stafford Cripps in the Commons on Tuesday.
On the whole the debate in the _Lords was more fruitful in con- structive comment than that in the Commons ; in the latter political criticisms from the Left and the Right tended to cancel each other out and indirectly justify the middle course adopted in the White Paper. Labour speakers complained that the scheme left too much to private enterprise, while some Conservatives urged that it did not leave enough, and that more scope should have been provided for initiative and competition. The truth surely is that all the three Corporations will have to face fierce competition from foreign concerns. The provision made for subsidiary companies should give opportunities for men with new ideas and militate against a rigid uniformity. More to the point was the question whether the railway and the shipping companies would really put their hearts into the expansion of air travel. Sir Stafford Cripps was able to show that under the new conditions, when air travel has so obviously come to stay, there was not much doubt about the whole- heartedness of the companies, and in any case he had guarded against lukewarmness by taking power to approve nominations for directorates. The Government has received some deserved com- pliments, not only for producing this scheme so quickly after the Chicago and Montreal conferences, but for devising a scheme which draws so much on experience of travel-organisation, while ensuring an element of unification under the Minister and through B.O.A.C. which will be indispensable in a service based on common training and the knowledge acquired in the Air Force, and destined to be operated on a foundation of understanding with the Dominions and other countries who are in agreement with us. What matters most now is that the services should be in a position to operate forthwith and that the British aircraft-construction firms should as soon as possible get into production and turn out machines capable of competing with those produced in America or any other country.
