1,000 Years Backward

Britons on the North Sea coast remember that only 20 years ago they were tumbling from their beds to dash for crude shelters as warning sirens screamed and the dull throb of German Zeppelin motors advanced through the grey-black fog. Determined to be better prepared to protect the civilian population in the event of another war, the House of Commons last week took up for its third and final reading the Air-Raid Precautions Bill.

The measure proposed the removal in wartime of some 7,000,000 people from crowded areas that may be endangered by air raids. As Sir Samuel Hoare, Home Secretary, asked for passage of the bill, he lamented that it will have the effect of "setting the clock back thousands of years . . . making men, women and children disperse over the country into the remotest districts, abandoning all the amenities and necessities of civilized life."

Under the bill a central organization is to be established in the Home Office to plan for evacuation of "target cities," such as London. With the co-operation of local authorities in the vulnerable cities, camp grounds will be laid out in the open country; food, water and sanitation arranged; facilities for transporting the civilian population set up. During the first & second readings tax-burdened local governments protested hotly that it was "unfair" to saddle them with the maintenance of civilians evacuated from other areas. To quiet these complaints Home Secretary Sir Samuel boosted the proportionate share to be paid by the Government for the cost of the plan from 50% to 90%.

When opponents of the bill halfheartedly asserted that it was impossible to remove three or four million people from a large city without causing a panic, a Hoare supporter croaked: "It is easier to do it before they are stretcher cases than afterward." Without a single dissenting voice the bill was passed.

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