AIR MENACE

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1933, Page 7

AIR MENACE

SIR lAN HAMILTON’S SPEECH

At liis installation/ as Lord Rector of Edi-nburkh University, -Sir lan Hamilton delivered a notable speech, in which he said-“ Pacts, covenants, treaties are signed easily enough, but when it comes to one small concrete act—even -a very partial disarmament or the giving of some control over 1 civil aviation t-o tile League authorities—there is nothing doing.” 1 The truth is no one, least of all the signatories themselves, believes in the sincerity of those who sign the pacts, covenants, treaties and plans. Any nation under present conditions can re-ann sub rasa. Not by big guns, by big tanks, by Zeppelins or battleships; these are expensive and only slowly-to-be-created toys; no, but bv civil aeroplanes, with which she can fit herself out by the hundred for the price of one battleship, arid’ earn good money by them, pending the dawn of the day.

The air! Mars is going to take liis seat, no longer in a train, but in a ’plane. . If the. air question is left unsettled, the world is done,”, he concluded. “The air interests are* beginning to say that, with control, they 1 will lose dividends. To Hell with their dividends! If no action‘-at all is taken to control the air, there will not only be an intense competition at once started, but, worse than that, an atmosphere of war will be_ created which will be absolutely fatal to anyeconomic conference worth having.