Civil Aviation.

Your telegram No. 210. [1]

We note the conclusions reached by you regarding the operation of
air routes by Commonwealth Governments but are in no position
ourselves to state our views until we have received and studied
the plan [2] submitted by the Australian Director-General of Civil
Aviation, which you state has now been communicated to the High
Commissioner Canberra [3], for transmission to us. We regret that
you did not find it possible to forward this document to us
earlier as we expected and had every reason to expect would have
been the case in view of the spirit and, indeed, the express
provisions contained in the agreement made between our two
Governments in Canberra in January last. [4] We did ask the
Australian High Commissioner here to request that this document be
forwarded to us [5] but it was not until the question was raised
officially in our telegram No. 165 of the 18th September [6] that
an assurance was forthcoming that it would be communicated to us
though it has not yet been received. We wish to state that in view
of the understanding between our two Governments we expected the
plan would have been furnished to us before, or at least at the
same time as it was given to the United Kingdom and Canadian
Authorities.

2. We would be glad to discuss the proposals during the
Ministerial conversations which are now being arranged and the
document, a copy of which is being obtained from your High
Commissioner, will in the meantime be studied here. Since our
Delegation for the Commonwealth talks in Ottawa and the later
meeting in the United States will be leaving here towards the end
of the second week of October, it is suggested that arrangements
should be made for representatives to arrive towards the end of
the first week and at the latest the beginning of the second week
of October.