Communications and transit > Air transport co-operation committee : minutes of the first session : held at Geneva from July 8th to 12th, 1930

40
element. The Communications and Transit Organisation, which was in touch with all organs of
aviation and took an interest in all those questions (as indeed was proved by the meeting of the
Committee), might, he thought, discharge the functions which Colonel Isler wished to entrust to
his permanent organ. The desired object could thus be achieved without the necessity for creating
such a super-organ, while the necessary elasticity would be maintained.
M. Pittard did not agree with Sir W. Sefton Brancker that the Secretary-General of the
C. 1. N. A. could act as a clearing-house, since the C. I. N. A. was a private organisation of which not
all States, even European (Germany and Switzerland for instance), were members.
He maintained that there was a gap in the organisation of aviation,and he would be glad to
see an institute established for the purpose of co-ordinating all the various activities, its work
being divided into three sections—an administrative section, which would perform the functions
at present entrusted to the C. I. N. A., an economic and commercial section (the subjects with which
it might deal had been studied by the present Committee) and a legal section, which should be
absolutely autonomous (since legal questions needed to be treated separately).
The amalgamation of all the organs might be a very difficult matter, but he thought it was
nevertheless possible. The C, T. N. A., whose role would be extended, might form the adminis¬
trative section.
He would emphasise the fact that he did not desire a new organ, as M. Molfese had thought, but
the amalgamation of all the Commissions already in existence, so that they would form a single
organ, to which sporting and tourist sections might be attached; he thought this concentration
of effort would be extremely beneficial to air navigation.
If the Committee were definitely opposed to the establishment of such an organ, the question
of placing all air navigation commissions under the C. I. N. A. might be examined.
M. Sondermayer thought that a compromise might be found between the proposal of Colonel
Isler and M. Pittard and the Secretariat's proposal : without setting up a permanent organ, they
might ask the Transit Committee to make a special study of the question and to undertake the
work of co-ordination, which they all agreed was necessary.
M. Molfese wished to clear up a misunderstanding. M. Pittard had spoken, in the statement
he had just made of “establishing” a new institute for co-ordinating the work of the existing
organisations. After M. Pittard’s explanations of his proposal, which aimed at a ’’concentration”
of these organisations, M. Molfese fully approved the suggestion to amalgamate all the organs and
to enlarge the functions of the C. I. N. A., so that it should embrace them all.
M. Ruiz Ferry said that the fact that the League of Nations had thought it necessary to
convene the meeting of that Committee proved that the organs already in existence were inadequate
He therefore supported the proposal of the Yugoslav delegate, and hoped that the Communications
and Transit Committee would be entrusted with the task.
The Chairman thought that the text drawn up by Colonel Isler and M. Pittard contained
three proposals : (i) That co-ordination was necessary between the organs dealing with air
navigation ; the Committee was unanimously in favour of co-ordination ; (2) that new centres
of study should be created if necessary ; all the members of the Committee appeared to be in favour
of that proposal also ; (3) that a permanent organ should be set up to obtain those results. It
was on that last point that the whole discussion turned. In the first place, he thought that if
they said, as the Swiss delegates proposed, that “ the only possible course was to set up a permanent
organ”, they would be prejudging the desired results. Moreover, there was a constitutional
difficulty ; the Co-operation Committee had been convened by the Communications and Transit
Committee of the League. The Communications and Transit Committee had been set up under
Article 23 rj of the League Covenant, which provided for the establishment of an organ to secure
and maintain the freedom of communications and transit; if a new organ were created, it would
disturb the organisation of the League. Moreover, he thought that the fact that the League had
summoned the present meeting proved that it took an interest in air navigation, and he thought
that they could confidently entrust the matter to the Communications and Transit Organisation,
which proposed to take over this new task. He thought that the Committee should confine itself
to affirming the necessity for co-ordination, leaving the working out of the problem to the
Communications and Transit Organisation. The Committee should continue to co-operate by
dealing with concrete cases, the settlement of which would gradually help to regulate the questions.
There was one other consideration which militated in favour of that solution. The Supervisory
Commission would certainly be reluctant to agree to any further expenditure, which the proposed
co-ordination organ would be bound to involve, whereas, if the solution proposed by M. Sondermayer
were adopted, expenditure would not be increased, while the principle advocated by Colonel Isler
would be safeguarded.
M. Molfese added that the Committee included heads of air navigation in Europe and the
Far East, who were also members of the C. I. N. A. and other organisations ; they were all perfectly
acquainted with the state of all air problems ; and at subsequent meetings they might suggest to
the competent organs how the work should be allocated. That allocation could be effected by the
Communications and Transit Committee, which was quite competent to perform the task.