36. Mr. PILKINIGTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider examining the possibilities of an air route between Western Australia and East Africa via the Keeling Islands, Diego Garcia and Seychelles, with a view to developing inter-Imperial communications?
§ Sir P. SASSOONThe potentialities of this route have been and will be kept carefully in view. It involves, however, long operational stages which are relatively uneconomical in the present state of aeronautical science and so preclude its consideration for development concurrently with the more economical Empire trunk routes, the development of which it is proposed to intensify under the Empire Air Transport Scheme.