AIR SURVEY OF EMPIRE

Chronicle (Levin), 6 January 1948, Page 7

AIR SURVEY OF EMPIRE

Alan

Mitchell

GREAT EXPERIENCES OF THE ARIES 2

• By

LONDON, i)ec. 23, 1947. ' fTwenty-six fifty, Mike, " said the gro'up captain. "Twenty-six fifty, sir, ' ' replied the wing commander. .The throbbing of Aries' engines deepened and cjuic lcened as their revoluvions increased. " Pull flap, Mike, ' ' said the group captain; and Aries nosed gently upwards as the air braltes ievered down to their full extent under her wings. "Right. Down we go, " the group captain murmured into his inter-com niunication microphone. Aries slid to a sniooth landing on the broad tarmac at Shawburv,. Bhropshire, the last of her Empire tour. In two months she had covered 35,000 miles and flown for 170 hours. Apart from an engine change at Negombo, Ceylon, when the grouncl tcrew workeu for 30 hours at a stretch ro remedy a faulty valve, the tour weni without a hitch. In tliose two months the 15 of us aboard enjoyed oue of tlie greatest experiences of our lives. We visited the vapitals of three eommonwealth couutries; we went yachting in Sydney, we saw Wellington and batlied in brilliant sunshine and watched the famous ''table cloth" sweeping down over Table Mountain at Cape Town. We loitered on the banks of the Euplirates and the Nile, piclted the losers for the Meiboume Cup at Flemmington, sweltered in tlie lieat of Darwin. We were irritated by a grev humid, smug Nairobi. We watched Ixerds of builalc and game stampeding from the din of Aries ' engines over the browfi, rolling plains of Tanganyika; •ind saw Khodes ; graye'in the Matoppos — in a boulder ringed plateau where lizards dream in the heat. 8ometimes we were bored by iong hours of living over sea and waste land; at otliers we were amazed at tlie variety and cheapness of food in tlie. Dominions after years of Hritisli rations. And we ate nieals far more satisiying and nourishing thau any available in the average Englrsli restaurant. We rarely stayed in any eity or town for more than two nights, but if some of our iinpressions were kaleidoscopic otliers were deiinite and lasting. We noted similarities and sharp differences in the problenis and standards of living in Britain and the Dominions., Kenya and .Southern Khodesia, while lieiug fuiIv aware of Ihe dangers of f orini ng superlicial opinions, the easy pitfall of Ihe brief-staving visitor. In all British countries without exreption we learned of the demand t'oi the skilled artisan, of aeute housiiq; shortages, of a rising trend in the cost of living, caused iu ' some instanees, it appeared, by the agitation of extreine left or Communist groups for sliortei and still shorter hours and higher wages Tlie abuiulanee of food aud unrationed goods, particularly in Australia, Kenya aud Khodesia, aud their apparent prosperity, frankly surprised us. Kew Zealand, we felt, while it provides far more food for her own people than is available for tiie average family in Britain, is rationiug herself more strictly than other Empire countries to aid Britain. The Dominions, it seemed, have returned, or very nearlv feturned, to a pre-war standard of living, :a standard long forgotten in Britain wliere, if.'anything, condiLions t his winter are worse than the.v were during the worst of the war years. Tlie well stocked shops with. Iheir noon lighting, and the large American cars, particularly in Australia and South Africa, em])hasised the comparison. Conmumwealth countries, it appeared, are more prosperous thau Britain todav and life for the average person, more congenial from manv points of view. Tlie.v also seem less eoneerncd, imniediately at any rate, over the problem of their export markets. While Britain is earnestly pre-occupied with her export drive to markets that are swiuging iu favour of buvers, and where foreign coinpetition is increasing, tlie Doininions are assured that Britain wili reniain a steady market for their primury produce for years to come. South Africa More Attractive. ()f tlie three Dominions it appeared — and oue has to be wary 'oi: superiicial i in]) ressio us — t li at fcjoutji ' Af n'ca,/f '"'With . its freedom from tlie dollar problem, may show the greatest developemeut in the next few vears.

Already it has taken far more people from Britain thau other Commouweaith countries; hundreds of millious of British capital is being invested in secondary industries; and while the Fnion is not without racial problems, black as well as while, a rigid forty hour week has not teuded to vitiate individual initiative nor hamper production and national etticiency. As a comitry with a promising future it has already attracted a rtmriber of British people who first travelled to Australia and New Zealand and who continued their journey to Cape Town declaring that they sought a land with less Government red tape and restrictions. In Boutliern Khodesia we found a ••iniilar couiidence in the future, with anticipations of remarkable deyelopments during the next decade, based on the eountry's great iron aud steel projects runniug into. millions, its huge coal deposits, and the rapid influx of British people. Its innnediate handicap is lack of easy aecess to the sea, 1500 miles away, and oue of its chief com cerns is to secure a suitable port and to build an efficient railway. ..

Generallv speaking the entire - crew of Aries felt that Kenya has been oveiwritten as the whiteuian 's paradise. rIts cost of living is higli, and its eolour problem, with at least 80,000 Indians, some millibns of uativesl aud onlv 25,000 odd Europeans, is as complicated as the situation in the Union to the south. The attractiveness of the countrv was counteracted by an air of inefficiencv aud laissez-faire aud echo of the imperious call of the British in Eastern countries — ' ' Bov ! ' ' ' '' ., Our most lasting impressious of the tour were that the average British family today is eiuluring a standard of living much lower than that in the Dominions; that if tlie standard of eating in the Dominions could be suddenly supplied to Britain a new spirit would

sweep the eountry at the end of a week; | and that to describe Britain 's diet as | "monotonous" is a typical British I understatementl | %