Flying the Atlantic : 413 



be justified; they may even represent national economy if they avoid 

 defeat or win victory. 



Military marvels, however, are hardly precedent for what reason- 

 ably may be expected under the condition of normal healthy growth. 

 Air travel and air transport are still luxuries and special services op- 

 erating in what must be regarded as a rather specialized field in the 

 general economy. The cost to the individual of air passage to or from 

 Europe is, to be sure, now comparable to rather superior first-class 

 ocean passage but these are not true costs in either class of travel for 

 the true costs are concealed in a multiplicity of economic and politi- 

 cal factors including both direct and indirect subsidies. 



In a sense air travel across the Atlantic is now competing with 

 steamship travel, but the steamship lines appear, year after year, to 

 be doing a good normal business and there is as yet no evidence that 

 the gain in air travel is won at the expense of steamer operation even 

 in first-class services. Given an adequate defense of the Atlantic and 

 a period of even reasonable peace and prosperity, there appears to be 

 no inherent reason why air travel should not turn out to be a supple- 

 ment to rather than a substitute for ocean passenger services. The 

 healthy international economy about the Atlantic may, in the future, 

 demand the best in all typ.es of services. 



When it comes to the matter of the transportation of goods, it 

 will be a long time before air services fill any appreciable part of the 

 general international demand for transport. Here cost is the greatest 

 single consideration. Ocean freights formerly carried in sailing ships 

 are now carried in steam and motor vessels and have each in their 

 various times been the greatest in volume and the lowest in cost of 

 all transport services. 



It is axiomatic that, per ton mile, transportation of goods on the 

 sea has always been and is today a small fraction of the cost of trans- 

 porting goods on land. The ocean freighters and the humble freight 

 train share the honor of being mankind's most indispensable serv- 

 ants. Upon them, in peace and in war, depends the whole structure 

 of the modern world. 



