Post-War Civil Aviation
The discussion in the House of Commons last Thursday on civil aviation after the war raised questions of capital importance. The future of air-transport is incalculable, and no one will be con- tent to see British machines relegated to any secondary place on routes in which this country and the Commonwealth have a primary interest. But as things stand it is inevitable that at the end of the war the United States will be in possession of a vast number of up-to-date and highly equipped transport machines, while we shall possess very few indeed. That is the result of the necessary and effective series of agreements whereby for war-purposes we concentrate on the production of certain types of aircraft, and America on the production of certain other types, among them the large transport planes. The wisdom of that is not to be contested, and it would be doing a grave injustice to America to suggest that she had any idea of profiting deliberately by the arrangement. But the problem is one which admits of no purely national solution. Captain Balfour in the House on Thursday spoke of the .steps that were being taken to perfect aircraft-design and prepare for the production on a large scale of approved types. But there are obvious dangers here. If at the end of . the war there are already in existence, as there well may be, more than enough transport planes to meet the world's immediate needs, the only effect of increasing the supply by the switching over of British factories to civil production will be to create a cut-throat competition which will benefit no one. We are looking forward to an ordered world after the war, and the only way to secure order in the air is to reach an equitable and harmonious agreement between the countries primarily concerned in particular areas. And over and above that an Air Commission for the whole world may well be needed in view of the increasing range of aircraft.
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