CIVILIAN AID

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23769, 24 September 1940, Page 8

CIVILIAN AID

HOMELESS PEOPLE BRUTAL AIR BOMBING PLANS OF GOVERNMENT By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright British Wireless LONDON, Sept. 22 The Minister of Health, Mr. Malcoljn Mac Donald, in a broadcast speech, described the Government's plans for sheltering citizens who had lost their homes through the senseless and brutal German air attacks.

"The care of those made homeless amidst the bombardment of air raids is now a major activity of the Government," Mr. Mac Donald said. "Many agencies are helping in the work. The local authorities have an important part to play, and countless citizens are giving assistance in one way or another, but the main responsibility for seeing that those who have been ejected from their homes are quickly provided with another roof and with food, clothing and other necessities Tests fairly and squarely upon the Government itself. "Generally speaking, our plans worked reasonably well through all the widely scattered raids on Britain until the violent bombings of London a fortnight ago. Then the first day or two of that experience revealed some faults in our plans. One important thing in the war is to preserve an alert eye and mind to detect mistakes as soon as they become apparent, to correct them swiftly and to turn them to our advantage. So, in the past two weeks, we have greatly improved our arrangements for looking after the homeless. Mutual Aid Given "Some boroughs have received a heavier weight of the attack than others," Mr. Mac Donald continued, "and have at times found their centres temporarily crammed to capacity. Aid then comes from other boroughs. There are omnibuses to take the people from the centres in the more hardly pressed boroughs to the centres in those which have been less severely hit. -"In all these movements boroiigh boundaries have been swept aside. The different areas are helping each other. The London defence region, which is even wider than that of the London County Council's area, is being treated as a whole. For people who cannot find new dwellings for themselves the official billeting officer must find billets. "Here again there are no rigid boundaries between borough and borough, or even between county and county. A host of people from most of the heavilybombed areas of London have recently been billeted widely outside their own boroughs. This has been done either by billeting people in other households, or else by putting them into unoccupied houses. Powers of Local Authorities

"All the local authorities have full powers to requisition empty houses for this purpose, and many have been exercising their powers energetically for some time. For instance, I asked the authorities of 14 London boroughs where there are the largest numbers of suitable empty houses to requisition those places up to a capacity to accommodate more than 20,000 persons, lest that should bo required, which is not the case at present. "A local authority can take over furnished houses if it likes, or can requisition an unfurnished house and acquire stocks from the Government, or by its own purchases obtain the furniture required for the use of the incoming householders. My friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer foots the bill. "The migration of homeless families into theso residences is now proceeding, but we must never ignore the human factors in this situation. Often those who have been turned out of house and home by enemy action, and who could be housed elsewhere, are reluctant to leave their own locality. Over and over again omnibuses have waited to take them away, but they have declined to go. Citizens as Soldiers "This solid refusal to budge from the danger zone is partly a reminder of the average Englishman's deep sentiment and rooting in the locality of his own home, and is partly evidence of how little these nightly bombings have shaken the nerve of those who are the victims of its fierce spite. "These London citizens are soldiers," Mr. Mac Donald concluded. "They are the front line troops. They are our comrades who have shown coolness and valour under fire. They have been in battle like our airmen and our sailors, and our men of Calais and Dunkirk. And that spirit has alrendy inflicted defeat on the enemy. We must sustain and succour them. We are all in this business together, and it is by the firm union of the whole nation that our cause will prevail."