Air Raid Precautions

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22344, 7 March 1938, Page 8

Air Raid Precautions

'ln the short cable message which reported the increase of the London County Council rate to produce an' additional sum of £2,500,000, largely necessitated by the cost of air raid precautions, appeared an early consequence of the Air Raids Precautions Act, written into the Statute Book in December of last year. What was most remarkable about this measure, one of anxious importance, was that it disclosed, so far as it disclosed anything, plans far from adequate for the purpose which might have been regarded as central; i.e., the protection of the civil population. It was a very short bill, which, in sketching the precautionary programme to be followed, used general and indefinite language and left details to be filled in by regulation. There is, of course, a great deal to be said for such a procedure. A bill that gave away too much information about defensive plans would be dangerously indiscreet. But that is the reasonable defence of a bill which does not too plainly disclose what is to be done; it does not apply as well to a bill which shows that little is to be done. Essentially the act is one that settles the proportion of public expenditure to be borne by the Exchequer and by the local authorities; and it apportions from 15 to 40 per cent, to the authorities and the rest to the Exchequer. The act only roughly adjusts the proportion of local expenditure to the ability of the area to pay: it does not overcome the problem of the wide variation in rating capacity, which is complicated by the variation, from area to area, of the danger to be ■ feared and of the cost of meeting it. A second point to -be mentioned here is that these financial provisions refer only to the public expenditure to be incurred; a great deal is left to householders and employers. Only in a covering memorandum does the act estimate the extent of this public expenditure; and there the amount roughly set at £32,000,000, spread over four years. Since the Government determinedly rejected suggestions that an upper limit of 2d should be written into the rating clauses, it may be inferred that the estimate was not considered to be a safe or conservative one.

The Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, explained the Government’s theory. The nation’s first need, be said, was an air force strong

enough to hold the initiative; the second was anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, detectors, and so on, of the highest efficiency. The third need he defined as follows:

Thirdly, on the ground, a system of air raid precautions that will achieve two objectives: that will, in the first place, ensure the country against panic, and, in the second place, will ensure that the services of the country, without which a civilised community cannot exist, will continue to be maintained. An Air Force that is deficient in either of these two fields ;s in a position of direct inferiority to an Air Force thart is supported in these two fields. An Air Force may have the same number of first-line machines as that of a hostile Power; but if it is not supported by an effective system of antiaircraft guns and searchlights and an organisation on the ground, it will have a greater difficulty in preventing a panic and a rupture in the national life. . . . Inevitably, if there is no effective ground organisation, when an air attack takes place there will be such an outcry from the various centres of population for local defence that the Air Force will be tied down to the local defence of this or that centre of industry or population. ... It is essential, therefore, that we now organise a comprehensive plan, as complete as can reasonably be effected, of ground organisation, and, by organising it, we shall be able to go far to guarantee the country against panic and the stoppage of the national life, and we shall be able to enable the Fighting Services to sustain their proper tactics and strategy.

It is fairly obvious that this is a statement of the need for precautions from a military point of view; there must not be civil panic or breakdown, or the air force will not be able to keep on the attack. It is not a statement of the need to afford the civil population the greatest possible measure of security. The difference is traceable in the act itself; and Sir Samuel Hoare’s statement and the bill were strongly criticised, most strongly from the Conservative benches, on this score. The act does not, in fact, provide either for a sufficiency of the large bomb-proof shelters which are a feature of Continental plans, or for the transfer of population from crowded and vulnerable areas. The act. and Ministerial explanations of the act, showed that intention stops far short of such measures. For example, in dealing with the danger from high-explosive bombs, Sir Samuel Hoare said that, apart from “ make- “ shift refuges under their own roofs ” and such public shelters as would be effective (only) against “ blast and splinters,” the Government would rely on “ dispersion other measures were too costly to be practicable. But relying on “ dispersion ” means, simply, hoping that bombs will fall where there are not many persons to be hit rather than where they are thickly crowded. One of the Government’s reasons for attempting little—and for leaving a large share of that to ratepayers as such and to householders and employers as such—is given above: more would cost more. A second reason, probably, is that the Government fears to embark on a programme which would necessitate extensive training, disciplining, and restraining of the civil population, as under the German system. The proposed expenditure on limited precautions is £32,000.000; it has been estimated that full precautions, of the kind approved by experience, would cost £500,000,000. Since Germany is known to have spent £400,000,000, the figure may not be far out. Rearmament, however, is to cost £1,500,000,000. A civil population shows strange reactions. Whether the people of England will prefer cheap protection and poor protection and a minimum of interference to the full protection it would have to pay dear for, in cash and in liberty, remains to be seen. .