Wigram advocated for aviation before anyone had flown in NZ
Oct 2, 2022 12:07:50 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 2, 2022 12:07:50 GMT 12
An interesting piece, which is very forward thinking and mentions how event then before anyone had officially flown an aeroplane in this country, Sir Henry Wigram was already advocating aviation to be adopted here - from The Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1909.
THE AIRSHIP.
While Canterbury was celebrating her jubilee, and a decade has not yet passed since she did, so, the man who would have dared to speak of the possibilities of aerial navigation being so near actual realisation as they are today, would have been considered a fairly fit person for the attention of two medical men, and his commitment to Sunnyside would have been looked upon as the inevitable result of the examination.
But the world moves quickly in these keen days, and things mundane change with kaleidoscopic rapidity. Up to the end of the nineteenth century, the balloon was the only known means of aerial transit, and then it was looked upon as only a toy, and the balloonist as something akin to the acrobat, fit only for a feature in the programme of a travelling showman.
To-day, aerial navigation is one of the most momentous questions with which the mind of man has to deal. It is agitating the greatest engineering minds of the civilised world, and the War Office of every Power of consequence is exercised with the advent of a new factor in war.
It is well that this fact should be widely realised. It is pleasing, too, to note that all our legislators are not dead to the great possibilities of aviation. The Hon H. F. Wigram, who has read the signs of the times, had the courage to speak in his place in the Legislative Council of the great possibilities of the airship, and to hint that Sir Joseph Ward, during his visit to the Old Country, would do well to learn all that was to be learnt of the position of aerial navigation at the moment, and to bring back with him all the knowledge on the subject possessed by those in Britain whose duty it is, in the interests of the nation, to be abreast of the times on this great and all-absorbing subject.
There are, doubtless, those who will smile at the use of the words "all-absorbing," but he laughs best who laughs last, and when one knows that an aerial voyage across the English Channel in a few minutes — hitherto but the dream of the aeronaut — may at any moment become a realisation, there is more than serious reason for giving ear to Mr Wigram's suggestion.
The steamboat, the railway, the telegraph, the electric tram, and other means of transit had all their day of small things, and during that day had their share of scepticism, ridicule and derision, but to-day they are accomplished facts, and their existence is indispensable to civilisation. Photography has made steel engraving a lost art, and has given to the humblest newspaper reader an artistic joy which twenty years ago was the monopoly of the well-to-do. It has attacked the vaudeville stage, and carried all before it, introducing an educative factor as unlooked for in the past as it is welcome in the present, and unlimited in its future. In every branch of industry the apparently impossible has been accomplished.
And in the case of the aviator his mission has come so near fulfilment that nations of both worlds are turning their eyes skywards as the direction from which the greatest possible danger may come. One writer in the Old Country, dealing with this subject, says that "the world stands upon the threshold of a new era in war, and Britain cannot afford to lag behind her rivals. The day has passed when the 'blue streak' gave protection. Our insularity vanished with the nineteenth century. We have before us nothing less than to gain in the air the same great position which we have held heretofore at sea."
This is but a mild extract from what is being written by the Home Press on this subject, but it goes to show that in view of what has been accomplished by the aeronauts, aviation is looked upon as having reached such a point of development that a marvellous future is imminent, and that to stand idly by and remain simply a spectator of this great revolution would be criminal, as well as suicidal.
Britain may be slow to enter upon great movements. She may be difficult to convince and may require a strong stimulus to move her from her inertia, but when she does start, she usually sees things through and is not afraid to spend her money in the effort. It is pleasing then to notice that the British Government has been awakened to the importance of the situation. An injustice may perhaps be done to it in supposing that it was ever indifferent, but alive or dead the news is welcome that in "the struggle for the air" the Home Government has come to grips. It has not been content with appointing a nominal committee to watch the progress of affairs and report at leisure — usually too late.
It has a War Department with an oversight in naval arid military matters that includes the preparation for and the guidance of the nations offensive and defensive operations. This department and the Admiralty have now been strengthened by the appointment of a committee of experts, whose duty it will be not only to watch and note what is being done by other nations in the matter of aerial work, but to itself move in the matter, and give every encouragement to research and invention in this unlimited field of exploitation.
The names of the committee are those of men in the forefront of the new movement, and their appointment is a renewal of confidence for the public. But one does not care to dwell on the warlike side of the question only, and the possibilities of aviation for spreading death and destruction. If an airship can be constructed to carry warriors and the engines and munitions of war the maximum of distance in the minimum of time; if it may be that the enthusiasts who speak of a voyage from Britain to New Zealand as but a matter of days are not visionaries whose dreams are a century too soon; if the polar regions may be explored from the air instead of by laborious toil over ice tract and floe; if — but the possibilities and probabilities displayed to us by the enthusiasts need not be enlarged upon. If these things are within the realm of the possible the reason is a thousand times stronger than the war potentialities for the whole of the nations devoting their energies to the study and development of what should in its perfection be one of the greatest boons that science has given to man in the whole history of the world.
The perfection of the airship will mark a new era in war no doubt; but it will also mark a new era in peace. Doubtless the nations will look to the warlike side for a while, for the times in that connection are "out of joint." But just as it is "the legion that never was listed" that blazes the track for the onward march of civilisation over land and sea, so to the same legion must we look for the better use of the new transit.
THE AIRSHIP.
While Canterbury was celebrating her jubilee, and a decade has not yet passed since she did, so, the man who would have dared to speak of the possibilities of aerial navigation being so near actual realisation as they are today, would have been considered a fairly fit person for the attention of two medical men, and his commitment to Sunnyside would have been looked upon as the inevitable result of the examination.
But the world moves quickly in these keen days, and things mundane change with kaleidoscopic rapidity. Up to the end of the nineteenth century, the balloon was the only known means of aerial transit, and then it was looked upon as only a toy, and the balloonist as something akin to the acrobat, fit only for a feature in the programme of a travelling showman.
To-day, aerial navigation is one of the most momentous questions with which the mind of man has to deal. It is agitating the greatest engineering minds of the civilised world, and the War Office of every Power of consequence is exercised with the advent of a new factor in war.
It is well that this fact should be widely realised. It is pleasing, too, to note that all our legislators are not dead to the great possibilities of aviation. The Hon H. F. Wigram, who has read the signs of the times, had the courage to speak in his place in the Legislative Council of the great possibilities of the airship, and to hint that Sir Joseph Ward, during his visit to the Old Country, would do well to learn all that was to be learnt of the position of aerial navigation at the moment, and to bring back with him all the knowledge on the subject possessed by those in Britain whose duty it is, in the interests of the nation, to be abreast of the times on this great and all-absorbing subject.
There are, doubtless, those who will smile at the use of the words "all-absorbing," but he laughs best who laughs last, and when one knows that an aerial voyage across the English Channel in a few minutes — hitherto but the dream of the aeronaut — may at any moment become a realisation, there is more than serious reason for giving ear to Mr Wigram's suggestion.
The steamboat, the railway, the telegraph, the electric tram, and other means of transit had all their day of small things, and during that day had their share of scepticism, ridicule and derision, but to-day they are accomplished facts, and their existence is indispensable to civilisation. Photography has made steel engraving a lost art, and has given to the humblest newspaper reader an artistic joy which twenty years ago was the monopoly of the well-to-do. It has attacked the vaudeville stage, and carried all before it, introducing an educative factor as unlooked for in the past as it is welcome in the present, and unlimited in its future. In every branch of industry the apparently impossible has been accomplished.
And in the case of the aviator his mission has come so near fulfilment that nations of both worlds are turning their eyes skywards as the direction from which the greatest possible danger may come. One writer in the Old Country, dealing with this subject, says that "the world stands upon the threshold of a new era in war, and Britain cannot afford to lag behind her rivals. The day has passed when the 'blue streak' gave protection. Our insularity vanished with the nineteenth century. We have before us nothing less than to gain in the air the same great position which we have held heretofore at sea."
This is but a mild extract from what is being written by the Home Press on this subject, but it goes to show that in view of what has been accomplished by the aeronauts, aviation is looked upon as having reached such a point of development that a marvellous future is imminent, and that to stand idly by and remain simply a spectator of this great revolution would be criminal, as well as suicidal.
Britain may be slow to enter upon great movements. She may be difficult to convince and may require a strong stimulus to move her from her inertia, but when she does start, she usually sees things through and is not afraid to spend her money in the effort. It is pleasing then to notice that the British Government has been awakened to the importance of the situation. An injustice may perhaps be done to it in supposing that it was ever indifferent, but alive or dead the news is welcome that in "the struggle for the air" the Home Government has come to grips. It has not been content with appointing a nominal committee to watch the progress of affairs and report at leisure — usually too late.
It has a War Department with an oversight in naval arid military matters that includes the preparation for and the guidance of the nations offensive and defensive operations. This department and the Admiralty have now been strengthened by the appointment of a committee of experts, whose duty it will be not only to watch and note what is being done by other nations in the matter of aerial work, but to itself move in the matter, and give every encouragement to research and invention in this unlimited field of exploitation.
The names of the committee are those of men in the forefront of the new movement, and their appointment is a renewal of confidence for the public. But one does not care to dwell on the warlike side of the question only, and the possibilities of aviation for spreading death and destruction. If an airship can be constructed to carry warriors and the engines and munitions of war the maximum of distance in the minimum of time; if it may be that the enthusiasts who speak of a voyage from Britain to New Zealand as but a matter of days are not visionaries whose dreams are a century too soon; if the polar regions may be explored from the air instead of by laborious toil over ice tract and floe; if — but the possibilities and probabilities displayed to us by the enthusiasts need not be enlarged upon. If these things are within the realm of the possible the reason is a thousand times stronger than the war potentialities for the whole of the nations devoting their energies to the study and development of what should in its perfection be one of the greatest boons that science has given to man in the whole history of the world.
The perfection of the airship will mark a new era in war no doubt; but it will also mark a new era in peace. Doubtless the nations will look to the warlike side for a while, for the times in that connection are "out of joint." But just as it is "the legion that never was listed" that blazes the track for the onward march of civilisation over land and sea, so to the same legion must we look for the better use of the new transit.