AIR RAID SHELTERS

Evening Star, Issue 22882, 14 February 1938, Page 18

AIR RAID SHELTERS

PUNNED TO GUANO BRITISH CIVILIANS

Under the new Ait Raids Precautions law recently passed by the British Parliament, an organised department has been set up to co-ordinate and finance the work of the local authorities in providing air raid shelters, and to arrange in advance for the evacuation of such town areas as cannot be afforded a reasonable measure of protection by such means.

Dispersal is the basis of the (British Government’s air-raid policy, but there' are to be public shelters for people caught in the- streets; also for those whose houses are unsuitable for affording protection. The public shelters are to be proof against gas, blasts and splinters.

Twenty million gas masks have been manufactured, and 200,000 volunteers have been registered to give their services in helping to nse them. The Government has been much criticised in Parliament for delay in carrying out these measures. The provision of shelters has been delayed by differences between the Government and the municipalities as to the proportion of the cost to be home respectively by central and local funds.

A compromise, however, is in sight, whereby the Government will ordinarily meet about 90 per cent, of the, total ex-f pense plus such amount as many be necessary to prevent the total from exceeding an agreed percentage of the municipal income in each case. It is recognised that the danger to be provided against is national and rightly therefore chargeable against the revenues of the State. But the work to he done being local, naturally falls to the municipal authorities, which cannot be expected to look after it effectually, unless some of the funds to be expended come out of the budgets for which they are responsible. The expenditure anticipated is to amount to the large sum of about £30,000,000. Arrangements are being made to provide each home with simple protective equipment. This is to consist of a gasmask for every member of the family, a long-handled shovel capable of conversion into a hoe, a metal receptacle, about the size of a coal-scuttle, filled with sand or chemicals and a simple handpump for spraying water. One room in the house is to be made gastight. _ ' Local authorities are to build safety places large enough to shelter everybody in the streets at the time that a raid occurs. Police and volunteers would put out incendiarv fires that had got out of control. They would also decontaminate areas where poison gas has been let loose. No effectual means have up to the present been discovered for saving a building that is hit by a bomb of large' size. Such bombs, however, are too heavy and too costly to be used at -all generally by raiding airplanes operating against ordinary dwellings. The damage likely to he done by them among the civil population therefore is expected to be comparatively small. To meet the food situation two schemes are now before the British Government. By one of them, sponsored by Sir Arthur Salter, the Oxford economist, the Government would store wheat, sugar, and other easily preserved foodstuffs in different parts of the country so as always to have several months’ supply in hand. Stocks of the more essential metals would also be gathered together. By the other scheme—that of the so-' called Empire movement, every family would store for itself six months’ supply of canned goods—the State assisting to finance the arrangement, which is estimated to cost about per household. The first-named scheme is very widely approved. But it is recognised that the opportunity presented last year of obtaining a large supply df wheat, at a bargain price, has been allowed to slip, and it is thought that if Britain now became a very large purchaser, the price might be pushed up unduly. The second scheme is regarded as applicable only on a much smaller scale, as private storage facilities are very limited in all but the bigger houses. Very expensive supervision also might be necessary to prevent premature use of stores, intended as war reserves.— ‘ Christian Science Monitor.’