AFTER forty years of discussion, the nations of the world lhave not yet agreed on any universal rule as to the privileges which the aircraft of one nation-should enjoy of flying over or landing for refuelling or comlimercial trading purposes in foreignterritory. If world organization is to mean anything, such a condition can hardly be permitted to continue for many years longer. The fact that the United Kingdom and the United States did finally come to an agreemlent between themselves, notwithstanding the Chicago disputes of 1944, on a set of principles which are easily adaptable for general world adoption, marks the Bermuda Agreemlent of February 1946 as something muchn more than just another agreement for exchange of commnercial aviation rights. To understand the present air transport situation, the positions which the United Kingdom and the United States lhave taken at various times in the past must be understood. In 1906, three years after the Wright brothers miiade the first successful flight with an engine-powered heavier-than-air machline and three years before Bleriot flew a French aircraft across the English Channel destroying all our old theories of national boundaries, Professor Westlake made his historic argument in favour of the basic British position-that every nation is sovereign in the airspace over its territory. In the forty years which intervened between Westlake's legalistic pronouncement and the very practical Bermuda Agreement of 1946, the fundamentals of the British position have niot changed. The United Kingdom has insisted upon its sovereign righlt to control the airspace over its territories and to determine from tiimie to time what foreign aircraft may be privileged to enter that airspace and on wxhat terms. This has also been the Unlited States position since 1919. If at times the British position has appeared to vacillate, a closer analysis wvill disclose that the seeming inconsistencies are nothing more than temiporary chaniges ill policy as to the extent of the privileges to l)e accorded foreign aircraft in British airspace in exchange for reciprocal privileges expected to be accorded British aircraft abroad. For Britain has always faced a very practical dilemima: the entry of foreign aircraft into British airspace might wvell imiperil her niatiolnal secturity, while foreign restrictions on Britislh aircraft enterinog foreign territory could at the same time linmit British airborne world colmmlilerce and the very neces-