SHIP OR AEROPLANE?
This four page
article is not just about which is the best, a ship or an aeroplane, but it is
about how technology supersedes the present but people who favour the old still
wish to cling on to it. “If you want to
see a classic example of non-imaginative short-sightedness, look up the records
and see what the admirals and generals said about aeroplanes in 1910, 1911 and
1912. I haven’t time to quote them here,
but “useless, utterly useless”, was the sum of their considered judgment. Most of them clung to that long after the War
had started, and their belligerent attitudes towards aviation did nothing to make
life easier for our airmen. But the
aeroplane had to come, and it is here; and, believe it or not, it has sounded
the death-knell of not only the fighting ship, but of all big steamships. History will reveal that the era of the
steamship was less than two hundred years”.
“In ten years Atlantic air travel will be commonplace, and by the time
children who are being born to-day are old enough to go places by themselves,
they will joke about the days when people had to cross the Ditch in ships”.
(This
article was followed by the tasteful nude picture below)