EMPIRE AVIATION.
SERVICE TO AUSTRALIA. FORMATION OF COMPANY. London, May >l2. About 20 members of the Industrial Group in the House of Commons met to discuss Commander Burney’s scheme for establishing an airship mail and passenger service to Australia, via India. Mr. A. H. Ashbolt, in an address on the Imperial aspect of the scheme, is stated to have intimated that the Australian Commonwealth Government would probably be prepared to vote a subsidy of £150,000 a year toward the cost of the scheme, though the matter was not definitely settled. Commander Burney was present, and explained his proposals. It is proposed that a company should be -formed, to which the Government would be asked to transfer, free of cost, all its airships, material, and airship bases. The capital would be £4,000,000, consisting of £1,800,000 in ordinary shares and the remainder in de-
bentures. Financial backing would be sought from the Government to the extent of asking it to guarantee a 6 per cent, dividend, free of income-tax, on the ordinary shares for ten years, and also the interest on the debentures, which would be redeemed after ten years. The company would undertake to institute a repayment fund of .£25.000 a yoar as soon as the debentures were redeemed to repay the advances from the Government. Commander Burney estimates that the timetable ■ between London and Australia would j be: Bombay. 5J days; Rangoon, 7J i days; Hong Kong, days; Australia, : 11 1-3 days. The meeting was informed that the type of airship contemplated would j carry 200 passengers and ten tons of , mails. One of the points discussed was the advantage to the country of being i able to command the services of a fleet i of arships which in time of war could I render enormous assistance in co-opera-tion with submarines. The members decided to form themselves into a committee and send a deputation to the Committee of Imperial Defence, to urge the commercial possibilities and the advantages from the point of view of defence of Commander Burney’s scheme.
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Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1922, Page 3
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339EMPIRE AVIATION. Taranaki Daily News, 5 July 1922, Page 3
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