Is Aviation Worth While?

Horowhenua Chronicle, 19 September 1910, Page 4

Is Aviation Worth While?

The large number of deaths which 'have resulted from experiment's in aviation are now leading men to ask whether aviation is worth while. A discussion on this point has been proceeding in the London Daily Chronicle. "Is it worth while, asks "Common Sense/' "tihht when in any number of many useful research, science is hopelessly handicapped by lack of endowment, money should.lie thrown away with both hands upon fancy flying macih.ines which seem to be of no use save to be smashed 1 , and snapped, anil photographed? It is woii'th while that the mind of the people at large should lie distracted from the things ■that do matter by these cheap not-orieties--the being of which is often as not a mere advertisement gamble; that invigorating and genuine sports shoiuld be neglected lor an enervating excitement, and that a splendid young life should bo sacrificed to make a Bournemouth holiday? Ts it worth while?" Mr Arthur Mee writes: ".I was one ol the first men, T think, to see a man fly in Europe, and I do not think itiia.t any I have ever seen has thrilled me more than to see Wilhui Wright rise from the ground on wings and fly away till lie was lost from sight above the Pyrenees. Apart from war, the genius of flying brings not one single gift to the hiiima.it race. What good can come of an airship as big as a steamship, which carries a handful ol people and may be dashed to pieces by tibe tearing of a bit of silk? What good can come or an aeroplane which carries the power of one hundred houses up into the skies, but can carry with it no more than two, or perhaps three men? It was easy to predict the beneficent result of railways; it is easy to see 'the beneficent result of the motor car; but is there a man in the world who believes that we can ever have a railway in the air Is it not sheer madness to invent a dangerous and doubtful method of transit for two or throe people at n time when we have for years been familiar with trains that travel at amazing speed, carrying a thousand people at a time " Mr Harold Begbie savs: "The advance of mankind is not towards mastery of mechanism and the elements, hut towards self-mastery. Tlie field of inquiry is consciousness, the destiny of the race is soiritual, and the onlv happiness possible to the sons of men is a happiness of tihe heart. Therefore is all the present excitement concerning aviation a powerful and sha.meful danger to humanitv."