Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-20

Continued from First Page.)
am saying here reflects upon their
peerlessness hardly at all. | am call
ing attention to the net in which their
great abilities seem to be caught, and
the barriers set to their benefactiOns.
If a shadow of blame creeps into my
comments, it is that with a modest
gallantry they make what they can
out of a necessarily cramped business
and do not complain loudly and vehe-
mently enough against these things
that prevent them year after year
from opening up those world airways
that would lead to a more united and
happier life for mankind.
" X x
The crux Of the business lies in the
comparative acknowledgements or the
financial and business and political
worlds In respect to the vast expan
sion of mechanical and economic pos.
sibility. We talk a lot Of nonsense
nowadays about big business. There
is really no big business in the world
today. No business big enough.
There are a number Of banking and
industrial combinations in existence
much larger than any that preceded
them, and the fact that they are
larger than their predecessors blinds
us to the fact that they are not large
enough for their jobs. Shipping, the
world trade in many staple products,
cry aloud for unification also-but for
the present let us stick to this simple
cas-, of the air. Business is entangled
with finance, finance with politics, and
when we begin to look into this rid
die of why that $3.50, 000, 900 trust does
not appear, secure it's concessions and
its wayleaves and get to work upon a
real world air service, we discover as
a first effectual barrier national
boundaries. We find every single
country of the European patchwork
messing about dwarfishly with its own
national aviation and placing every
possible impeachment In the way OF
foreign air development.
u Il
Now effective air travel has to be
internationalized from the start. The
airplane makes leaps Of three or four
hundred miles, and there is hardly
any sense in going UP in a machine
In Europe, at least-unless you mean
to come down In another country. It
Is as sensible to hope for an air trans
port system developed on national
lines as It would be to hope for an
interoceanic railway system, through
the coalescence Of mile and half-mile
of bits Of line built, each at It's own
sweet will, to its own design and
gauge, by every village and township
en- route. Here I will not rouse the
deep and passionate emotions of pa
triotism in the reader by any general
condemnation of national partisan
ship, but from the point of view Of air
development merely and solely ma
tionalism is an unmitigated nuisance.
At present the only areas of the
worlds surface capable of being
brought under one control for air ex-
ploitation are, firstly, the European
and Asiatic areas under Soviet gov
eminent, alliance or influence; Sec
ondly, the United States of America
and their continent, and, thirdly, the
territories, protectorates, allies and
dependents of the British empire east
and south of Palestine-to Malaga,
Australia and the Cape. The develop
ment of Soviet flying is retarded by
comparative poverty and the economic
acknowledgements of the huge regions
concerned; the United States is a rail-
way-made unity. with admirably or
ganized rail transport and powerful
railway influences for air services to
fight, and with none of the separating
channels, inland seas and so forth that
make flying so desirable in the west
ern part of the Old World; while as
for the third great flying area, the
teamship-created British empire, IT
is, aerially speaking. decapitated.
r II *
You cannot fly from the British
Isles to the vast dominions round and
about the Indian Ocean without in
fringing foreign territory. see no
hope that any one of these three areas.
so handicapped. will be able to initiate
practicable air services for general
use. and still less can I see. any hope
of our existing sovereign powers going
so far as to coalesce for air develop
ment with it's neighbors. That would
involve a reversal of the entire drift
OF nationalist feeling.
But given such.a miracle, given for
example pooling of German and Rus
sian and Chinese air interests, back
bone lines could De created from the
North Sea to the Pacific and to Picking
and Anatolia. to which every other
air line in the Old World would be
to articulate. But even If
one supposes a sufficient liberality of
the principals to make such an en-
terprise practicable, it is difficult to
imagine the foreign Offices and the
war offices OF the rest Of the powers"
permitting such q Germano- Rmssian.s