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RETROSPECT

in flying to Paris by balloon instead of by aeroplane. Everyone wants to see better, safer and cheaper aeroplanes. If the Air League can offer us a service which will take us to Paris in half-an-hour for half-a-crown, I would even guarantee that Neon would be the first season-ticket holder. But all this has nothing to do with the essential fact that not a single aeroplane would be flying commercially today without the Government subsidy, for the simple reason that by comparison with other forms of transport air transport is uneconomic. To talk vaguely of the great developments which will occur in the future is no answer, unless you can show that the defects of air transport are technical defects which can be overcome by mechanical means. A few of them, of course, are, but the overwhelming defects are due to the nature of the air itself. It is very unfortunate, but we fail to see how it can be helped.

After all, the "Review" may be right; but somehow its viewpoint is reminiscent of certain comment when the Wrights were experimenting

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