Victory Aircraft

Clarence Decatur Howe, Canada's prow-chinned, aggressive Minister of Reconstruction, announced a good deal for the Dominion: the sale of the $6,000,000 Government-owned Victory Aircraft Company at Malton (near Toronto). At one stroke he: 1) disposed of a big wartime property; 2) cut Canada in for a share of the postwar plane-manufacturing business.

The purchaser, the Hawker Siddeley Co. of London, which controls many of Britain's biggest aircraft concerns (e.g., A. V. Roe, Hawker Aircraft, Armstrong Whitworth), will continue to make the Lincoln bomber,* reportedly will switch to the Tudor, the civilian version of the Lincoln, after the war. The company has also agreed to maintain an undisclosed level of employment at the Canadian plant, set up a completely integrated aircraft industry in Canada, including research and development.

The Canadian plane industry relies upon the U.S. and Britain for designs, motors and instruments. Its prospects for striking out for itself on the postwar markets were slim. Now, the Hawker Siddeley backing and its know-how may put Canada in the postwar aviation-manufacturing race.

*The Lincoln, Britain's superfortress, is an enlarged and stepped-up version of the Lancaster.

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