constructors, and they have never failed us just so long as we have fed them with sufficient field experience and given them clear and definite enough practical demands on which to base their work.

The London-Paris route or the crossChannel routes are the only developed air routes in the world, and on that demonstration field our future British progress must still continue to depend. That demonstration must be assisted by the State. I personally feel that the extent of such State help is now of a generous enough character for the particular object in view; but our designers and constructors require as a background to this effort of the State a continuance of abstract research on the fundamental factors of the problem, so that they may continually advance in entirely new directions as well as in directions where no further advance seems possible.

Having carried out our policy of concentration so far as regards the type and operational experience on the cross-Channel routes, the question arises, or will soon arise, as to whether we are now justified in advancing to the next step in the natural sequence of development; I mean, the next big step, because it is quite conceivable that a similar step in the form of an additional route somewhere else in the Empire might require support from the State and demonstration farther away from this country. However, the next big step is the Cairo-Karachi route. The efforts which have so far been made have been of a purely development character. Probably such development by the Royal Air Force must be continued, but it must be obvious that this work has been carried out with matériel embodying practical opinion and the knowledge or experience which the London-Paris route has given us. A general analysis of the conditions seems to show that а further development with modern machines and by private enterprise is rapidly becoming advisable.

Lord Gorell's review of the activities of other countries is of great interest on account of the measure of apprehension which appears to exist as to our more conservative activity. As I have indicated, I do not share that apprehension, and I would ask you, gentlemen, to consider yet another aspect of those foreign activities. These activities relate to countries which have depreciated exchanges and whose exchequers are seriously in debt, countries which have unsound taxation, and countries which, by their present uneconomic policies, contribute not a little to our own unemployment and to the hardship conditions in this country. Yet we find these countries expending efforts and money on air development, burdening their future and handicap. ping their own revival. Such policies cannot endure. What conceivable help can transport at this stage in its development give to a peasant in Czecho-Slovakia? railways should come first, and a healthier sense of proportion must be required to govern the policy and activity of these countries, so that the apprehension which some of us feel will no longer exist.

air

His

In conclusion, as chairman of the old Lord Weir of Eastwood.

Advisory Committee on Civil Aviation, let me simply say how much I welcome, how whole-heartedly I welcome, the establishment of the new Advisory Board. It will have this supreme advantage over the old Committee, that, as it has for its chairman the Under Secretary of State, it will be in a position of having a chairman who can see that its recommendations are promptly dealt with.

I will now call upon Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes, Controller-General of Civil Aviation.

Major-General Sir FREDERICK H. SYKES, G.B.E., K.C.B., C.M.G., Controller-General of Civil Aviation: My Lords and Gentlemen, I do not propose to say more than a few words, as I am glad to hear that there are many gentlemen present who wish to speak this morning.

We had yesterday the privilege of listening to able expositions of civil aviation from the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Lord Gorell, and from Colonel Bristow, and as the official to whom has been entrusted since its inception the executive official control of Civil Aviation, I wish, in a purely detached and uncritical spirit, to fill in certain gaps, and to make certain suggestions which may be of value in looking at the problem as a whole.

We are all of us concerned in laying down the broad principles on which aviation in this country can best be developed. De. tailed resolutions as to the institution of this or that route, the allocation of so much subsidy, whether the General Post Office should or should not make more use of air mails, are only stones-very important stones, but still only stones-in the edifice, mere nibbles at the main problem as to how best to ensure for Great Britain and the British Empire the sovereignty of the air, like the sovereignty which since the days of Elizabeth she has held upon the seas; and that is what we are out to try to attain.

We are poorer, however, by some 14,000,000,000l. since 1914. Luxuries are strictly barred; our Government in the next Budget must practise the strictest economy; and there are certain things we must make up our minds to go without-that is to say, if the income tax is to come down.

Is aviation one of those luxuries which we can afford to forego? Everybody here will, I think, agree that the answer is: "We can't!" The air-I speak as a soldier, who at the termination of the War held the post of Chief of the Air Staff-materially helped, if it did not actually win, the fight. Next time air power will be decisive. The air knows no boundaries, and Great Britain and the Empire are therefore no longer protected by their engirdling seas; air power is therefore a necessity. How best can this be attained? Sea power," says Mahan, "is based upon a flourishing industry." Substitute "air" for "sea," and the analogy is still true. Therefore, if we accept Mahan or the dictum of any other great naval or military strategist, the Air Force by itself is not air power, and after a brief-lived, if

brilliant, flash must wither if reserves are not immediately forthcoming. In the case of air those reserves will in the future be supplied by commercial aviation. As Lord Gorell truly said, service and civil aviation are to one another as the Navy to the Mercantile Marine. Wise generals, if they wish to maintain the strength of their units, must ensure a reserve of a least three men for every one in the firing line. To maintain an air force capable of prolonged resistance, the same ratio as a minimum in pilots, personnel, design and material is necessary.

At the present time commercial aviation, even if it would, cannot yet play the part of reservoir to the R.A.F. Colonel Bristow told us yesterday the very small number of machines we had this year and would probably have at the beginning of next year. Nevertheless, a nucleus has been formed, and this object must constitute one of its main claims for Government support.

The whole world is tired and sick of war. Pacts have been signed at Washington; navies reduced; and optimists have thought to see the first signs of an approaching millenium. The king, however, who to show his good faith not only disarmed all his troops but burned all his weapons, was a fool, and almost next day his neighbour invaded his territory and cut off his head No, the wise man when peace was declared cut his armed forces down to a minimum which might form a nucleus in case of need, and sent the others out to trade and peaceful adventure so that they might be strong in time of stress.

Surely Great Britain is not going to stultify her great efforts after peace by saying in effect, "I know navies are out of date, but I have here a weapon far more deadly and far more effective which I intend to use and exploit to its utmost." It is the development of peace attributes which is in true accord with the agreements made.

Peace and commerce never yet looked well tied to war's chariot, and, gentlemen, as Controller-General of Civil Aviation, I plead for something greater than a measure of financial support, namely, that you consider whether in these latter days the surest method of developing civil aviation, а potential asset of incalculable value to Great Britain and the British Empire may not lie in freeing her of the blighting incubus of military end-all and be-all, and allow her to go her own way as a peaceful, not unpro. ductive, sister, a child as yet, but in time capable of assisting and even of being essential to the fighting arm.

With reference to research,-research, both abstract and concrete, is the keynote of progress; but, as Colonel Bristow so ably said, progress in design must depend on the amount of flying. It is clear that for economic reasons new designs cannot be tried out other than experimentally except by commercial use. Real progress in every direction is, therefore, dependent upon commercial activity.

I have said nothing of what commercial aviation may do within the Empire, of what indirect advantages it may confer by speeding up that all important question of communica

tions. That, too, must come; but we want to get the cross-Channel lines running satisfactorily before striking out further afield. I am content to throw this apple into the arena and to ask your views on these three points: (1) Is aviation a necessity of our national life, and therefore to be afforded at any cost? (2) Can service aviation exist without its civil counterpart? (3) How best can civil aviation be developed.

For myself, I am convinced that, as yet, civil aviation cannot fly by itself; that support must be given and is justified; that we run as grave a risk as was ever faced by any country if, for want of support, we allow the aviation industry to fade, wither, and die; and that we are wrong if, instead of following the advice vouchsafed to Imperial Rome : Hae tibi erunt artes pacis imponere morem," we tend to choose the path of beating our ploughshares into swords.

66

The CHAIRMAN: With great pleasure I call upon Colonel Armstrong, President of the Federation of British Industries.

Colonel O. C. ARMSTRONG, D S.O., Presi Ident of the Federation of British Industries : My Lords and Gentlemen, as President of the Federation of British Industries, I have great pleasure in associating that great industrial body with the objects of this important Conference. The subject is one which has been in our minds for a long time, and we have endeavoured, so far as the experience hitherto gained and the information available allows, to come to some definite conclusion as to the potentialities of commercial aviation from the industrial point of view and as to the facilities which are necessary if aviation services are to be of substantial use to industry. The subject is, however, one of great difficulty, and depends to a very large extent on technical considerations, upon which it is very difficult for anybody but an expert to form an opinion. I can therefore only deal with it very tentatively and on very broad lines.

I may say at once, however, that the Federation is convinced that air transport can and will be of the greatest service to industry and commerce. They also feel that it is of very great importance that sufficient support should be given to the pioneers of civil aviation in the early stages. I am not, however, going to express any opinion as to the form which that support should take.

For months and even for years past the Federation has been pressing with all the forces at its command for a reduction of Government expenditure and of taxation; of course, in so doing we desire the reduction to be upon unproductive rather than upon productive expenditure: none the less, we cannot but recognise that the question of finance may probably weigh with the Government very strongly, even in regard to so vital a subject as that which we are here discussing.

We feel, however, some small doubt whether the Government has not tended to look at this matter rather too exclusively from the point of view of military aviation. Of course, the interest of national safety must be paramount, but experience would seem to suggest that a

great military Air Force can best be built up on the basis of a great commercial air transport industry. As has often been observed, this has been the line of development in connection with other branches of transport, and we would desire to submit for the consideration of His Majesty's Government that when once effective civil air services are built up on the basis of private enterprise, research and development will proceed far more rapidly and efficiently than they will do as part of a military machine. Whether a change of view on the part of the Government should be reflected in the transfer of Government expenditure from the military to the civil side is a matter upon which I should hesitate to express an opinion. I merely refer to the question as one which deserves special consideration.

Another point which occurs to one in connection with the question of Government support touches the General Post Office. As I shall show later on, it is in the direction of mail and passenger services rather than of goods services that aviation seems likely at the present time to be most serviceable to industry and commerce. Here, again, I speak with diffidence; but it does seems to me that the General Post Office has not been so sympathetic to the idea of air mails as it might have been. We feel not only that the range of mail services might easily and even profitably be extended, but also that the Government has perhaps not done all that could have been done to bring the existing services to the notice of the public. There seems to have been an unnecessary amount of difficulty and delay even in regard to such an apparently trifling matter as the creation of a special air mail stamp, which would, we believe, have exercised substantial influence as an advertisement for the air services.

I will now turn to the practical side of the question and deal with industrial requirements and the potentialities for their supply in so far as existing experience enables one to form an estimate. First of all, in regard to the carriage of goods. I gather that the actual tonnage of goods carried during the first three-quarters of 1921 by aircraft on the air lines of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Holland were as follows:the United Kingdom, 12 tons; France, 126 tons; Belgium, 14 tons; and Holland, 27 tons. So far as this country is concerned, the total value of goods carried is practically of no importance; it seems to me, therefore, that, so far as the general industries of the country are concerned, we can ignore for the present the potentialities of the air service for the carriage of goods. Urgent parcels, perishable goods, and goods of small bulk and large value will, no doubt, be carried by air, and the availability of such a service may in individual instances be of extreme importance, but, as I say, for the general industries of the country the matter hardly comes into consideration.

The question of passenger service and mail service is, however, of very much more importance. In both these respects it would seem that the experience gained from the London-Paris service has amply justified the Colonel O. C. Armstrong.

belief in the practical value of carriage by air, but from the commercial point of view it does seem that the London-Paris route does not really give a fair test. The distance is too short to enable the full advantage to be gained from the speed of the aeroplane. The same will apply to the London-Brussels route when it is working. The advantage would be considerably increased if services could be started to and from the more important provincial cities of the Kingdom, though, presumably, there is not yet sufficient evidence of demand to justify such an extension. One looks forward, however, to a development on these lines in the not very distant future.

None the less, it seems to me that the real benefit of air services, both for passengers and mails, can only be gained on very much longer routes. Anyone who studies the question impartially must, I think, immediately be struck with the enormous gain which would accrue to us, both commercially and imperially, if we could link up the distant parts of the Empire with the mother country by oversea air services I feel that if the needs of the commercial community are to be met, it is essential that the longdistance services should receive early and strong support.

We have heard and read most sympathetically statements regarding the proposed Imperial Airship Service, of which Mr. A. H. Ashbolt is so able a champion. Although I understand that New Zealand and South Africa do not see their way at present to co-operate in the scheme, it is to be hoped that, with the co-operation of Australia, a service to that great Dominion may be established in the near future.

Of

Even more important, perhaps, will be an effective service through Egypt to India and Africa, and one cannot help feeling that if the initial expense of such a service could be met, the cost would very quickly be defrayed by the business community through the profits of the mail and passenger services. course, I fully realise that the expense to the individual of such a service must considerably exceed the expense of other forms of transport, but to the business man the question of expense has always to be considered in relation to the value of the service which is offered. It seems to me that if, as has been suggested, letters could be carried to India for 8d. or some similar figure, the amount of postal matter which would be sent from this country by air to India would be very large. If, as I understand to be the case, a reply can be obtained from India within two weeks, I do not doubt that a very great proportion not only of the business but also of the domestic correspondents would take advantage of the more rapid means of communication and pay a rate which would easily enable the cost to be covered. It is true, of course, that aircraft can hardly expect to compete with the telegraph, but the advantage of being able to send hundreds or thousands of words by letter and of obtaining a reply upon the same scale is such that the cable service and the air service would hardly be in competition. The above consideration, no