IMPERIAL AIRWAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1938, Page 7

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS

SIR J. REITH APPOINTED CHAIRMAN.

RESIGNATION OF MANAGING DIRECTOR. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 14. Announcing the appointment of Sir John Reith as chairman of the Board of Imperial Airways, the Secretary for Air, Sir Kingsley Wood, said in the House of Commons that the Imperial Airways Board had also nominated Sir James Price to be a director of the company. The present managingdirector, Mr Woods Humphrey, had placed his resignation in the hands of the board and it had been accepted. Sir Kingsley Wood mentioned that the board was asking the new chairman to investigate the charges against the management of the company made in the House of Commons, and when the investigations were completed the board proposed to make a public statement. The Cadman Committee of Inquiry, into Civil Aviation pointed to serious defects in the management of Imperial Airways, and said they called for immediate reform, with some change in the directing personnel. The report declared that “although the carriage of air passengers in safety and comfort, and the conveyance of mails and freight have been achieved by Imperial Airways with considerable efficiency, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the management of Imperial Airways has been defective in other respects. In particular, not only has it failed to co-operate fully with the Air Ministry, but it has been intolerant of suggestion. Internally its attitude in staff matters has left much to be desired. It appears to us that the managing director of the company has taken a commercial view of his responsibilities that was too narrow.” The British Government agreed with the committee’s recommendations, consulted with the company, and was informed that the company would welcome the suggestion that a whole-time chairman should be appointed by the board in agreement with the Government. The Government also agreed that one or two full-time directors should be associated with the chairman. Sir John Charles Walsham Reith was general manager of the British Broadcasting Company until it was transformed into the British Broadcasting Corporation, of which he then became director-general. He has been outspoken in his views on broadcasting. In 1930 he declared that his policy was to give the public not what it wanted but what it ought to want. He objected to the control of broadcasting by the State. He was knighted in 1927.