THE TARIFF AND AIRSHIPS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 323, 25 January 1902, Page 3

THE TARIFF AND AIRSHIPS.

Smugglers may be the first to turn the navigation of the air to practical account. This is the suggestion of a contemporary, which says that while Santos-Dumont's creation is at best a fra'il thing, 11 it is precisely in freightcarrying of a certain kind that the device may be put to practical use and made to pay large dividends. Henry George said many years ago, that when aerial navigtion should be perfected, custom-houses would disappear, ■ because the cnly way to maintain a tariff around a country would be to roof the country in. That is undeniably true of the perfected flying machine of romance, and it may turn out to be true to a very considerable extent even in such feeble steps in the direction of the navigation of the air as have been taken at Paris. The airship in its present state, cannot be used for carrying heavy goods to any great distance, but to carry light things of considerable value—silks, laces, jewels, opium, cigars, paintings and the like—a hundred miles or so in good weather without trouble. Let us imagine a free-trade emporium established in Canada twenty miles from the American frontier, stocked with goods of these kinds and provided with a fleet of Santos-Dumont’s airships What would hinder aeronauts from taking out their cargoes on any dark, still night and landing them fifty miles on the" American side of the line ? Any force of customs inspectors that could be employed would be worthless against such an invasion. The whole Un'ited States Army could not stop it. They would simply have to abandon the attempt to collect duties on things tliat could lie carried by the aerial route, unless, as Mr George remarks, they were prepared to roof the country in.”