The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the west Coast Times. THURSDAY AUGUST 2, 1928. AERIAL TRANSPORT.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 August 1928, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the west Coast Times. THURSDAY AUGUST 2, 1928. AERIAL TRANSPORT.

Austualia, being our nearest neighbour, gives us closer intimacy than other parts of the world. Yet, wo arc not too well informed about events happening in that quarter of the globe. A murder or a disaster is noised abroad with all the celerity of the electric telegraph, hut modern developments have to be very striking before they attain similar notoriety. In aerial transport, however, Australia is making great advances, and is leading the Empire in the commercial use of flying. And this great domestic development opens up a fresh problem for Australia. Australia is a vast continent, and its population is scattered in groups far and wide on the outskirts of the territory. The interior is a great open space peopled very sparsely. Australia has tried building roads and railways to various parts to ensure transport and the stability of the settled parts. Roads nowadays cost great sums of money when constructed for the needs of swift moving motor traffic. Railways are more costly still. The great trans-continent line from east to west linking Western Australia with the sister States was a great feat in railway construction, and it east a vast sum of money and is expensive to maintain also. Now has come along the aerial age, and in Australia there appears opportunity to test supremacy with the motor and the railway by means of aerial navigation. And it is going to be tested. This means tho opening up of a new problem for Australia, for as flying grows the railways and the motor traffic must suffer, hut the roads and the railways will still have to be paid for, yet their earning power will he cut down severely. Aerial mail and transport services to and from the IVest are now being established. From Adelaide to Perth is a distance of some 1700 miles, and a weekly transport service is to he established to carry passengers and mails between the two points named.' IVhat is possible over the long distance named, is possible, also, over shorter distances, and other services are being established to meet the requirements of the- public and trade and commerce. The planes to he used on the long distance trip are to carry fourteen passengers, bo that traffic is expected to grow substantially. The Government is to subsidise this enterprise which will be in direct rivalry with the railway o ; arid

there is always the prospect of the aeroplanes becoming the principal carriers seeing that transport will bo more speedy, and all the time the safety factor is growing. The aeroplane will not bo able to deal with heavy freights for some considerable time at least, but the easily handled passenger and light goods traffic will be lost almost from the outset. That is happening already in New Zealand to a considerable extent between the motors and the railway. The former means of transport is growing steadily popular, and something of a similar character will transpire in Australia when tlio aeroplane is the accepted rival of the railway for the long journeys possiblo, and necessary in that territory. A financial problem must present itself sooner or later to Australian .statesmen. It is customary when borrowing to set down the constructed railways as a national asset against the public indebtedness, but with the rivalry of the aeroplane, tlio book value of the railways will have to be written down greatly, while it is plain with tlio loss of revenue the’ railways must become moro and more a heavy animal charge in providing interest and sinking fund to redeem loans which built the railways. Natural conditions in Now Zealand are not similar, but an East Coast aerial service will some day do great harm to the railway revenue, and a like problem, though probably not so acute, will arise bore. Thus we see that the changing conditions of the times carry many fresh possibilities in their train.