BRITAIN’S EFFORT

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 2, 27 September 1939, Page 10

BRITAIN’S EFFORT

Great Industrial Resources

A.R.P. PRODUCTION

(British Official Wireless.) (Received September 26, 9.10 p.m.)

RUGBY, September 25.

The magnitude of Britain’s effort for the protection of her population against air attack is revealed in the recently disclosed details of one aspect of the air-raid precautions. Twenty square miles of corrugated steel arc being produced by steel works in strategic positions over the whole of the United Kingdom for two’and a half million people in their own gardens.

Production of the first million shelters, which began mid-February, was completed, and the shelters were delivered by the second week in September. The rate now has been increased from 1,000,000 in the seven months to 1,500,000 in the same period. It is pointed out that this vital defence measure is not hampering the supply of armaments, for the shelter requirements represent only about 31 per cent, of the total production of all classes of British steel. . , Use of Vaults.

The City of Westminster has greatly extended the provision of air-raid shelters by arranging for the public to have access to vaults under pavements. Some 4400 such vaults which have been prescribed as public shelters will accommodate between 60,000 and 70,000 persons. There are in addition a number of vaults without direct access from the street and therefore open at present only to occupiers. These will also become public shelters when they arc linked up with vaults that can be entered from the street.

Public shelters in Westminster, including basements, have been strengthened, where necessary, in 450 well-con-structed modern buildings, and shelter trenches in parks are now sufficient for 130,000 persons. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Attlee, and the deputy-leader, Mr. Greenwood, called at No. 10 Downing Street this afternoon to discuss with Mr. Chamberlain, who was accompanied by the Ministers of Labour and Supply, plans for increasing production.

Lord Perry has been appointed business adviser to the Ministry of Food. During the Great War Lord Perry was director of the agricultural machinery division of the Food Production Department. It was this division that acquired and operated a large licet of agricultural tractors which played such an important part in ploughing in 1917-IS. Later he became Deputy Controller of the Mechanical Warfare Department and Director of Traction in the Ministry of Munitions. National Register. Sixty-five thousand enumerators who have been appointed to help in the compilation of a national register of all persons resident in the United Kingdom began yesterday to distribute registration forms. The distribution will continue till Friday night next. A form must be filled in by tiie householder or other person responsible, giving certain particulars of every person spending the night in the household. The Ministry of Economic Warfare announces for the convenience of British and neutral traders that a commercial inquiries section has been established to answer inquiries from commercial firms, shipowners, and agents. Inquiries by letter, wherever possible in duplicate, should be marked C.E. They will be answered with the utmost dispatch. The main object is to assist concerning particulars of consignments of goods Which are detained or likely to be detained by contraband patrols. The section is unable to advise on export policy, on import or export licensing assistance for British exporters in neutral markets, or on questions arising out of the Trading with the Enemy Act. These matters are the responsibility of other Government departments.

U-BOAT BOLT-HOLES

Gradual Hemming-In

(Independent Cable Service.)

.LONDON, September 25.

The “Daily Express” says that the navy is gradually hemming in the U-boats’ bolt-holes in the North Sea. The craft are now returning from the Atlantic after delivering their first onslaughts against merchant ships, and are having great, difficulty in finding a way either through the front or back doors from their bases.

Every day the hunting flotillas have four or five encounters with the enemy. At least a hundred of these battles have been fought, of which the outside world has heard nothing. Now worn, weary, and strained, tiie crews of the U-boats have to struggle every inch of the way home. The U-boat expeditions of 1918 were pleasures cruises compared with the ceaseless and terrifying hunting which tiie first batcii encountered in the past month. The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain reports that the German High Command announced: “A German submarine has been sunk at sea. The war lias also yielded good results to us.”

SEVEN YEARS’ JAIL

Sending Of Information To Germany

LONDON, September 25.

Donald Adams, a racing journalist, aged 56, pleaded guilty to IS counts of forwarding information to Germany.

Mr. Justice Oliver, at Old Bailey, in sentencing Adams to seven years’ hard labour, said: “Last week I was trying people for murder. I don’t know if a man like you is uot worse than anv of these murderers because you took a part for pay in murdering your countrymen—if you could.”

A London message on July 5 staled that according to the prosecution Adams sent to a German address books and other information including a copy of "Infantry Training,” which, though it could be purchased at a bookstall, way useful to an enemy. A photostatic copy of a code was also intercepted and produced in Court.