Prospects for Air Services for Mail or Passenger Traffic. From some points of view China would appear to offer a particularly favourable field for the development of commercial aviation. She covers a vast area, has a population of 400,000,000 people of whom a large proportion is engaged in trade, and at the same time her internal means of communication are still so entirely inadequate as to pose great obstacles to the full exploitation of her resources. The construction of railways and roads and the improvement of waterways are undertakings requiring many years of sustained effort and enormous expenditure of capital, and it might reasonably be contended that air services, which could be instituted at much less cost and with comparatively little outlay would be well suited to the needs of the country. Discussion of the subject with many of the leading business men in Shanghai leaves one, however, with the impression that under the existing conditions of trade the demand for aeroplane services between the more important trading centres is hardly sufficiently strong to encourage their promotion solely as commercial enterprises. As regards the carriage of mails, the correspondence passing between foreign and Chinese business houses at the various ports is seldom of so urgent a nature as to render the question of rapid transit of great importance, and it is questionable whether any substantial proportion of the mails carried by the Chinese and foreign Post Offices would bear a much higher rate of postage in return for the privilege of being conveyed by air. The same remark applies to the bulk of the parcel mails, the saving of a few hours or days being seldom a matter of great moment. In the case of more distant centres, such as Yunnanfu, Chengtu and Chungking, the establishment of aeroplane services would undoubtedly be a boon to local firms and residents and would probably tend to the development of trade, but the volume of mails despatched to and from such centres is still comparatively small. I enclose herewith statements showing the mail dealt with in 1918 by the Chinese Post Office, the mail matter posted by unofficial postal agencies, parcels dealt with, and the average weight of mail carried each week from Shanghai by the Chinese and British Post Offices. The statement last mentioned has been supplied to me confidentially by the Postal Authorities and is not for publication.
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