GAS PERIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20612, 29 December 1936, Page 3

GAS PERIL

PROBLEM OF SHELTER Anxiety is growing in Britain over the perilous inadequacy of the Government’s measures for the protection of the population against gas attacks from the air. Experts declare it essential that, if 45,000,000 people are to have a chance of safety, large numbers of big gasproof and bomb-proof shelters must be erected all over the country. Such shelters will, of course, cost a great deal of money, but their construction will provide work for large numbers of the unemployed. They will take time to build, and will probably change the face of Britain. They will be Britain’s one chance against a disaster of inconceivable hoiTor if and when war comes again. Several firms have submitted plans for the erection of twenty large cinemas, each with a fully equipped airraid shelter, in provincial cities. In the opinion of the experts this enterprise must be multiplied in other directions hundreds or thousands of times. And the Government must take the lead. Lord Strabolgi, formerly Commander Kenworthy, an authority on defence, said recently: “Instructions have been issued to civilians on how to render their homes immune from poison gas. But to make the ordinary dwelling-house immune is impossible.” The Government is leaving local au-

thorities to prepare their own plans —and. largely, to spend their own money. Most authorities resent this. One, Portland (Dorset) Council, as a protest diverted £lO3 from the air raid precautions fund to the publicity fund.