AIR SENSE AND NONSENSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 823, 18 November 1929, Page 8

AIR SENSE AND NONSENSE

It is si - • ... the. flight in th - Airship h'toi have /om 53 "r •hr flight. ~ ° T '* One mi iubcr of the J louse of Coni*,**, sags hr has discovered, in a pnbiieatinl tchich ft zfitn < predi tio that a aster to an airship in whih politician * tccrc cnjotting a flight was foretold r this eery month and year 9 to mal.r the trip are each over ?0 tours old Th< -airship's human ca go" will weigh abo„t IS tons. I can only hope ihat the Air Ministry won’t staml for this sort of stuff. To a certain extent, one can understand a politician's natural suspicions concerning the efficiency of gas as an elevating medium, but such a general reluctance among M.P’s. to get their air senses stretched is disgracefuL Take one case alone, for example. I mean that of the politician who. knowing full well that a respectable and reputable firm had issued a publication which prophesied 'disaster to an airship in which politicians were enjoying a flight,” and knowing also that in all probability that firm must have voted toward putting their M.P. into Parliament —he not only refuses to go up himself but also endeavours to dissuade the others from taking the flight. In other words, he was deliberately trying to defeat the prophecy, first by trying to stop the politicians from flying at all. and secondly, he was in any ease attempting to prevent Ahem from enjoying the flight. That man was cold-bloodedly breaking faith with his electors. He ought to be shot. As I said before, 1 think that the M.P’s. should be forced into taking that flight. Properly arranged, I think it could be managed. To start with, there should be a tribunal for the purpose of dealing with M.P's. excuses. An M.P. would sidle into the dock i and beam nervously at the court.

-Well?” the chairman would say unpleasantly. “Well, er, it’s like this —” the M.P. would begin. “You sec, I—er —have to see my constituents —er —dentist, —er I mean the fact is I’ve just had a letter from a very old Aunt, —er. —” “Take him away,” the chairman would say, “And throw liim in the horse box with the others!” The fellow would shuffle out, mumbling, and would then be thrown into a horse box ready to be hoisted up to the airship. Some, of course, would never come before the tribunal. They simply wouldn’t appear. But it’s safe to bei that the whole bunch of them would be hanging about, somewhere near the airdrome, breathlessly waiting for the accident to happen in order that they might be the first to have their photos taken beside the wreckage. Beaters shuld be employed to round up these men. What a scene it would make! The shouting of the beaters as they hammered on their tin cans aud gradually worked in toward the airdrome, the squealing of the politicians as they were forced into the open, the shouts as one, perhaps, broke the cordon and galloped for safety, the thunder of hoofs as the mounted guards pursued him. liog-tied him and dragged him back; the roar of the crowd as some particularly troublesome fellow was chloroformed or sand-bagged, the wails and moutliings of the politicians as they were hoisted to the great air-lintr. floating serenely above —what a picture! But let us consider any one of these M.P’s. on the day following the flight. He meets a friend in the strceL perhaps.

and talks for a while. Then. — “Speaking of the weather.” say, “Have you ever had a flight in an airship? Xo? Well. well. You ought to go up. it's fine! The —er-3" last time I went up,—er yesterday it was, the weal Not that it worried us at all but tb* captain said to me —etc. etc.”