Union Insurance Society of Canton, Limited Head Office HONG KONG 2nd. June 1920 Major Villiers DSO Department of Controller General of Information Air Ministry Kingsway London. Dear Major Villiers I have just returned from a visit to Peking and enclose the result of a few observations made up there. I saw Colonel Holt who had arrived safely, and possibly he will be better able to give you the political side of matters up there than I can, but briefly the situation is as follows. There are two Government Departments in Peking at present actively interested in Aviation; one is the Aeronautical Department of which General Ting Chin is the Director, and the other, the Ministry of Communications of which General Ting Hsi is the Director. Both departments are apparently working in opposition and there is a certain amount of jealousy and ill feeling shown. The Aeronautical Department, which is a camouflage name for the War Department, has, as you know, 40 Vickers Vimy Machines on the way out and 120 Avros. Messrs. Vickers China Ltd. are handling technical matters for them and Major Patterson has already arrived to take charge. They are proposing to build good hangars on a site near the Summer Palace. The Ministry of Communications have three Handley Page Machines erected in Peking but they are only housing them in mat hangars. They started training Chinese Pilots on Avros on 1st May in Aviation and propose to take about 18 months to teach them to fly; they seem to have done pretty well on some old Caudron machines which they have. There are two small Companies starting in China to run Air services, the one in Shanghai apparently having much better facilities of doing business than the one here. I have put them in touch with Colonel Smallwood in Peking who will doubtless sell them some of his very excellent machines. The French Government are apparently giving machines away here in order to start commercial Aviation, and have also offered to one of the companies a Fourth machine, apparently a new type with four engines which drive a single air screen much after the fashion of the German Junker machine I imagine. The French are very keen and have an Air Attaché at the Legation now in Peking.
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