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DOMINION AVIATORS.

FRENCH APPRECIATION, NEW ZEALAND'S HELP. The following apiii'L'ciation of the airmen of the. ovTsca British Dominions is by Baron d'Estournelles do Constant,,reporter to the Senate Committee on Aerial and Submarino Navigation: [ have be-.'n able to estimate the progross of English aviation by the number of Hying schools. I will not say how .many there are. The figures would seem improbable, and, moreover, the English do not like to say what they are going to do. They bluff in just the opposite of the usual style; they say nothing, and then come out with extraordinary results, to the astonishment of their adversaries. I can only repeat what I say whenever I come bad; from England; the Germans are doomed, and nothing can save them except our internal dissensions or divisions among the Allies. To show that Germany is doomed, I need mention only one fact out of many. Germany is i using up her men freely, and she is' exhausting the supply. She can only renew it from one year to another, and this is not enough. England, on the other hajid, has reserves everywhere. Like the Germans, Italians awl Russians, she has her high birth-rate and her constant supplies, of strong and healthy young me.v. She has colonial troops, though not so many as we have; but, beyond all this, she ha? volunteers from her great free colonies. Every one of her colonies might almost have been regarded, before the war, as practically useless from the military point of view, and yet every one is giving her inexhaustible supplies.

THE NEW ZEALAND ARM?. Let its take, for instance, New Zealand, a far-away country, two months' iourney from London, thinly populated in proportion to its large area, and having barely a million inhabitants—men, women and children —all told. New Zealand has, nevertheless, supplied, in addition to money, a contingent of 80,000 splendid volunteers already trained by the discipline of.sport and by an activity which is better than any military system. It lias been the same with South Africa, which was in open revolt against England twenty years ago, and is now standing up with her in defence of the same cause—liberty ; and it is the same with Canada.

The English aviation schools are opening their doors to all these great recruiting sources. I cannot, give details of what I saw, but a general survey ambled me to realise, for the first time.'what the British Empire is. ] bad a vision, if I may so express ir, of this Eriipire in flesh and blood, in action, one in body and mind. This was my vision:

I was visiting an entirely new aerial gunnery school at ——, opened last winter on the model of our old school at C'azaux (barely two years old, but a classic already!) I admired its equipment, intended to pave the way for still larger establishments of the same kind. In the evening I dined at the officers' and pilots' mess (all the pilots are officers), and sat at the right hand of the commander off the school, himself a young officer, who exercised the same kind of influence as that of the captain of a football team. About 200 oliieers ;<nd pilots, all spick and span, sat round the table, which was decorated with flowers and served like any other self-re-specting English table. In the morning I had scon all these young men at work, living about, even dropping into the sea and coining out unharmed. In the evening I bad seen them play cricket, and talked to them. All were volunteers, drawn alike from the great English schools and tho colonies. PROPORTION OP COLONIALS, The proportion of colonials struck me as very large—about a quarter. Here are the figures for only one school. Out of 210 present I counted 22 Canadians. 10 Australians, five New Zealanders, seven South Africans, and two from It din and China —all tine, strong young fellows, full of courage and confidence. I questioned the commander. Hew meritorious it is, I remarked, for all these young men to do what they have done! Xheir fathers' great object in quitting old Europe was to have nothing more to do with our disputes, and to be able to live their lives in peace, and now the sons arn coming back of their own accord, and are giving up everything to serve in the army, "They haven't given up anything," quietly answered the commander: "on the contrary, they are defending the existence they had begun to build up." I asked the commander for some information about his family. "I come from Vancouver," he said. "There are ten of us—six boys and four girls'. My youngest sister is still at school. The idx boys are, or have been, on tho French front. Three of th'em are airmen. One. a captain, has v.lie Croix di> Guerre. Three have been badly wounded. Three of my sisters are nurses." He then showed mo a photograph of a family group comprising six fine, upright young in<m, happy and smiling, and three girls, little more than children. All of them had left their home on the Pacific Coast and crossed the American Continent and thi) Atlantic to come and help the French army against German domination, and to- serve, not merely their own country, but liberty and humanity.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19171024.2.48

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1917, Page 8

Word count
Tapeke kupu
886

DOMINION AVIATORS. Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1917, Page 8

DOMINION AVIATORS. Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1917, Page 8

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