Air Enterprise
Incomparably the most sensible comment on the Govern- ment's decision allowing independent air transport companies new opportunities to develop overseas services came from Sir Miles Thomas, the chairman of B.O.A.C. He said that there ought to be scope for both public and private enterprise. The key word is " enterprise." So long as attention is concentrated on that, sense can readily be -distinguished from nonsense in the long confused question of civil air transport. Mr. Herbert Morrison's argument that private companies ought to be given no new opportunities whatever is clearly nonsense. As it is, those companies are willing to go ahead, despite the handicaps of only being allowed to operate on new routes (which have presumably not been attractive to the existing corporations), of being expected to provide third class services on colonial routes, of being directed specifically to the freight market, and of having to raise their capital on less advantageous terms than the corporations. Does Mr. Morrison believe that such enter- prise should be bottled up ? It is surely more reasonable to let the private companies make their bid, and if they succeed .even in these disadvantageous conditions there will be a perfectly good case for giving them wider opportunities later. The history of British civil aviation has been, until very recent years, a rather sorry story. There is a presumption that if we had had more free enterprise from the beginning we might have had some bankruptcies and failures, but we would probably have had more and better air services today. By all means let the corporations have Government support, so long as we know what the taxpayers are paying for and why they are paying it. By all means allow the private companies the right to make their own way if they can. But to deny them even that would be less than justice and less than common sense.
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