CIVIL AVIATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1943, Page 4

CIVIL AVIATION

CONCERN ABOUT FUTURE PROSPECTS AFTER WAR PROBLEMS. NEED FOR VIGOROUS POLICY. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, June 1.

The Empire is profoundly alarmed about the position of British civil aviation and its future prospects, said Mr VI. R. D. Perkins (Conservative M.P. for Strand), opening a debate in the House of Commons on civil avia-

tion. Calling for an immediate Empire conference on the question, he said it was generally accepted that the nation best prepared after the wax - to enter world air commerce on a really large scale would first recover economic stability. The aircraft industry was now the biggest in Britain. If steps, were not taken now there would, after the war, be whole areas distressed and whole countries practically paralysed. Britain would be faced with hordes of unemployed, all concentrated on a certain selected area. He suggested that one Minister of Cabinet rank should have sole charge of civil, aviation, with a permanent Un-der-Secretary of State as his righthand man. There were at present four Ministers directly responsible for British civil aviation and they were giving a fine exhibition of the old English game of passing the buck. No Minister dared to take responsibility. Civil aviation should be taken from the Air Ministry. Air marshals trained the flight to bomb and kill. Their outlook was purely military, as a result of which the civil aviation department was being held back and lacked drive and vision.

Mr Perkins also urged the immediate strengthening of the Board of British Overseas Airways, with keen young men who lived for flying and had no conflicting interests and divided loyalties. “We do not want any more city directors,” he said. "The Board is overladen with them. We do not want any more discarded Cabinet members or convalescing air marshals. If young men are not available in Britain, why not go out into the Empire and see if they cannot be found there?”

The Deputy-Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, said that the Government was consulting the Dominions with a view to arriving as soon as possible at an agreement on procedure in future and common policy. Consultations had also begun with the principal aeroplane constructors to see what could be done without interfering in any way with wax - production. The Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, replying in the debate, said that the first consideration in the Government’s policy was to arrive at a common policy with the Dominions. The Government was now striving to arrive at that policy. It had taken the initiative and was calling the Dominions into consultation.