The subject on which I propose to address you to-night is certainly one with which this generation is not only rightly challenged, but one with which one could almost say that it should be taunted. For nowadays we pride ourselves on the fact that no great invention can be universally acknowledged to be successful without its being very rapidly turned to the economic service of mankind. But aviation has been a human accomplishment for more than half a generation, and so far no aeroplane has earned its cost and keep.

In the old days, when manufactures were primitive, when accurate machine tools did not exist, when very few people were interested or instructed in scientific things and no means existed for instructing or interesting the many, it was natural enough that great inventions should have been made and then allowed to expire, so to speak, without being used.

At the time when the question of the development of civil aviation is so much in the public mind, I am most grateful to the Royal Aeronautical Society for giving me this opportunity of summarising the technical position of the airship to-day.

It seems to me that if air transport is to take its place with other existing forms of transport the long distance routes of the world must be established, and my object in summarising the present technical position of the airship is to enable you to form an opinion as to whether the modern airship is capable of taking its place in establishing these routes.

I have confined my remarks to the rigid as it is the large airship which is the most suitable for this long distance work.

As this long distance work has a distinct bearing, in my opinion, on the value of the airship for naval purposes, I have made a brief reference to this aspect of the subject.