AN INTER-COMMUNICATION EPOCH.

Liverpool’s official welcome and congratulations were extended to visitors by Sir Archibald T. Salvidge, Mr. F. C. Wilson, and the Town Clerk. The Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Mr. Arnold Rushton, had been compelled, to his great regret, to leave for London to fulfil a long-standing engagement. Mr. Rushton expressed himself in terms of high praise of the initiative taken by Belfast. In his view the inauguration of the enterprise will mark a most important epoch in communication between two great industrial centres, which already are so intimately related by commercial ties. The scheme, he assured me, will receive his heartiest support. As for the Lord Mayor of Belfast, he is, naturally, most enthusiastic about the new service. “It is our hope in Belfast,” he said to me, “that this air mail will be the forerunner of greater commercial prosperity, and that, further, it will strengthen the ties of friendship between Lancashire and Northern Ireland.” Belfast, he considered, had every reason to be proud of the advance that was being made in such a bringing together, with a view to future developments, of two centres of such industrial and commercial importance; and he expressed a hope that the merchants and manufacturers of Liverpool would take full advantage of the service. “Belfast and Liverpool,” he added, “are establishing the first air service in the United Kingdom to be run on a commercial basis, without Government subsidy. It brings these two cities within two hours’ distance of each other.” Apart from these declarations, Sir William, at a subsequent deferred luncheon in the Town Hall, at the invitation of the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, delivered a formal message from Belfast in the following terms:

My dear Lord Mayor – I tender greetings to you and to the citizens of Liverpool on the occasion of the inauguration of the air mail service between Belfast and Liverpool, which has taken place this afternoon, and is the first venture of the kind to be established in the United Kingdom. On such an auspicious occasion may I be permitted to convey to you and to your citizens the good wishes of the people of Belfast, and to express a hope that the ties of friendship between the great county of Lancashire and the capital of Northern Ireland will be strengthened by this new service.

The regular service will commence tomorrow morning, when a plane leaving Aintree at 5.30 is due to arrive at Belfast with freight and newspapers at eight a.m.