"FREEDOM OF THE AIR"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 66, 10 December 1937, Page 5

"FREEDOM OF THE AIR"

Eftort to Break Pan- American Monopoly SUBSIDY FOR COMPETITORS? (Received 10, 8.45 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Decfl 9. A series of critieisms concerning the alleged Pan-American Airways monopoly niarked the opening of the battle for "freedom of the air." Witnesscs for the Merchant Marine Committee, which urges that control of transoceanic aviation should be transferred to the Maritime Commission, asserted that post ofiice control tended to preserve the monopoly. Mr John Slater, executive vice-presi; dent of the Export Steamship Corporation, declared that man-made obstacles were preventing the shipping companies from enfering the air. "I do not wish to detract from PanAmerican Airways' developmental work, but I find no precedenf for rewarding a pioneer company with a monopoly," he said. Mr J. P. Kennedy, chairman of the Maritime Commission, before the Sengte Committee, urged that ovcrseas aircraft should be given construction and operating subsidies ih the samo way as shipping. He said the foreign trade service in future will be integrated a.s an air and water service in which' fast passenger traffic and express cargo will travel by air and slow passenger traffic and heavy cargo by water. "This will be far less costly than super-ocean liner services, " he sai3.