PUBLIC SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 95, 19 October 1938, Page 24

PUBLIC SERVICE

VOLUNTARILY DONE

WHAT BRITAIN ACHIEVES

CLUBS AND CENTRES

In common with most other serious visitors to Germany, Mr. K. G. Menzies, the Comm<onwealth AttorneyGeneral, detects a good deal of a really spiritual quality in the willingness of young Germans to devote themselves to the service and well-being of the State, says the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Age." Before leaving London he offered, by implication, a mild criticism of the attitude towards community service in the great democratic countries. This reminder that our responsibilities to our neighbours are not entirely ended with the payment of rates and taxes is timely, but it would be a mistake to take at its face value the evidence that is so os- • tentatiously put before us in certain other countries that there is in them a higher sense of the duties of citizenship. This apparent enthusiasm for service for the State is by no means noticeable only in Germany. You will find it paraded no less blatantly in Moscow or in Angora than in Berlin. Mussolini could muster equally imposing proof of the passion for public service displayed by Fascists throughout Italy. The spontaneity of sentiment which is common to the totalitarian countries generally becomes suspect, 1 and, in fact, we know that it is drilled into all, young and old, and is directed by the all-controlling State. The a deification of the State which is taking place in Germany could scarce fail to achieve remarkable results. Some of them, however, are more apparent than real. VOLUNTARY SERVICE. ■» Whether in the long run it is a good thing or a bad that in England a very wide field of social service is left to voluntary effort is a matter upon which there may be differences of opinion, but in fairness to our democratic system it must be claimed that much of the work which is undertaken in Germany through, for example, the State-imposed Winter Help Fund or the Strength Through Joy Movement, is either unnecessary here or is done through the public social services. With less fuss and outward show more is certainly done in Britain for the health Of the community arid for the relief of unemployment and poverty than in Russia, Germany, or Italy. In any comparison with what is taking place in totalitarian States, it should be taken into account, and perhaps some marks should be given for the very fact that it is voluntary.; In the opinion of most English, at any rate, this is in itself a strong merit, and the inclination to maintain a situation in which voluntaryism has its place in public service is generally strongly held. An interesting survey of the achievements, prospects, and future programme of such social service as falls within its scope is afforded in the annual report of the National Council Of Social Service just published. The council Was established at the end oi the war to foster interest in welfare work which had fallen sadly into arrear. It became generally realised that with more; people in this country than ever before living under new conditions, with greater mobility and vastly increased industrialisation, there was a risk of breakdown of the forms of social order which had given security to an earlier generation. Little short of a new social order had to be evolved. OCCUPATIONAL CLUBS. In. reviewing the work of the past year, the council declares that the passing of the Physical Training and Recreation Act was "the most significant singl6 outside event of the year ... perhaps the most significant piece of social legislation for many years past," in that it embodies the principle of co-operation between statutory and voluntary, effort, for which the council stands, and on which it was founded. It is, however, the everyday social needs of unemployed people and their dependants that continue to occupy the main attention'of'the council. The experiment of making available clubs in which the normal advantages of companionship and recreation are reinforced by opportunities for active occupation and education has proved Sound, arid it is reported that today there are 900 clubs for men and 550 for women. It is estimated that in March this year the clubs included 100,000 men and 35,000 women, and that no fewer than 175,000 people had been members for some part of the previous twelve months. In the first three months of 1938 some 22,000 classes for man and woman club members were held in craftwork, drama, music, physical training, cookery, dress making, and formal educational subjects, and more t|ian 355,000. attendances were, recorded. V These figures show asubstantial increase over those 6f the previous year. A keen interest in cookery classes is general in the women's clubs, and all the evidence suggests that instruction given is applied in members' homes. DEMAND FOR SHEEP'S HEADS. It is reported that one week butchers in several Yorkshire villages were confronted with an unusual demand for sheep's heads, and that by Saturday night there was not a sheep's head to be bought anywhere in the district. The explanation was that the members of three or four neighbouring women's clubs had been u .attending a cookery class, where they had been shown various ways of cooking sheep's heads so as to make nourishing and economical meals, and they were losing no time in trying out these recipes. Remarkable progress has been made in the movement for the provision of community centres on new housing estates. .Nine years of experiment and study have led the council to the conclusion that a solution of the social problems of new estates lies in the community centre and community association. At the end of .the: year the Community Centres and Associations Committee of the council was in contact with 304 schemes for the erection of community centres. This is a field in which there is obvious scope for development in view of the immense house-building activity which has taken place in recent years, creating new towns and extending old ones by the addition of vast new suburbs. Hitherto social amenities have hardly kept abreast of this vast development. On these new housing estates the chief immediate need is the building of a , community centre controlled through community associations by those who use them. On a large estate of some 17000 new houses near Bristol the corporation of that city has built and I equipped such a centre at a cost of [over £18.000. It includes a main hall! [■eating 400, a fully-equipped gym-'

nasium, seven clubrooms, common and reading rooms, two games rooms, a craft room, and a workshop. This, of course, is a more ambitious effort than most, but it is an excellent model for all. AGAINST TOTALITARIANISM. As. in the new housing estates community centres are most needed, so in; the rural areas the most usual requirement is an adequate village hall. Assistance for this purpose is available in the form of monetary grants, and each scheme is submitted to an honorary panel of architects. The rural community councils are a good example of harmonious co-operation between voluntary and statutory bodies, and they in turn co-operate with the national fitness committees, whose work the social service centres are helping to promote. The National Council is at present engaged in an inquiry, in association with other organisations, into the problem of recruitment, training, and placing of social workers in carrying out its work. None of its activities but could.,be pursued better if the council and its affiliated organisations had the personal service of more workers at its disposal. But money power counts, top, and an appeal is made for still more generous public support. Those who look with distrust on methods employed in the totalitarian countries where State effort is depended'upon for directing and controlling all social work might wall be inclined to, assist this voluntary movement, if only as a reasonable insurance against the introduction here of "such developments." It'is, at all events, clear that the; v^hjntary., sy;pte,m jn welfare work is proving.jeffective, and is capable of almost infinite expansion. Seating his handicap. First Golfer: "What's your handicap?" ;V"^ ' '.■■•■..■■ '. ~ '-. ■■ ■ : ...Second Golfer;, "A rotten. coldJ'V. • ~"First Golfer: ''"Well, I, can't give you strokes on that, but I'll give you some advice. Get,busy with Baxters Lung Preserver, i 'Baxters' .is ; the best remedy I know."

Don't you be handicapped by a cold, Take care —take "Baxters."—Advt.