the passenger service outlined above, the airship
offers undoubted facilities. As we have said before, it is mainly over
long distances that the airship will score, and for long distances on
the amount carried the success of the enterprise will be secured. For
this purpose the rigid airship will be essential. There are certain
instances in which the non-rigid may possibly be profitably utilized,
and one such is suggested by a mail service between this country and
Scandinavia. A service is feasible between Newcastle and Norway by
airships of a capacity of the S.S. Twin type. These ships would carry
700 lb. of mails each trip at about 4d. per ounce, which would reduce
the time of delivering letters from about two and a half to three days
to twenty-four hours.

A commercial airship company is regarded in this country as a new and
highly hazardous undertaking, and it seems to be somewhat overlooked
that it is not quite the novel idea so many people imagine. Before the
war, in the years 1910 to 1914, the Deutsche Luftfahrt Actien
Gesellschaft successfully ran a commercial Zeppelin service in which
four airships were used, namely, Schwaben, Victoria Luise, Hansa and
Sachsan. During this period over 17,000 passengers were carried a
total distance of over 100,000 miles without incurring a single fatal
accident. Numerous English people made trips in these airships,
including Viscount Jellicoe, but the success of the company has
apparently been forgotten.

We have endeavoured to show that the non-rigid airship has
potentialities even for commercial purposes, but there is no doubt
whatever that the future of the airship in the commercial world rests
entirely with the rigid type, and the airships of this type moreover
must be of infinitely greater capacity than those at present in
existence, if a return is to be expected for the capital invested in
them. General Sykes stated, in the paper which he read before the
London Chamber of Commerce, "that for commercial purposes the airship
is eminently adapted for long-distance journeys involving non-stop
flights. It has this inherent advantage over the aeroplane, that while
there appears to be a limit to the range of the aeroplane as at present
constructed, there is practically no limit whatever to that of the
airship, as this can be overcome by merely increasing the size. It
thus appears that for such journeys as crossing the Atlantic, or
crossing the Pacific from the west c