1938-11-15 — Page 10

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The China Mail

THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 15, 1938.

be kept in full swing until their aim is reached. By vigor- ous propaganda, by house-to- house canvass if need be, the ranks of the various civilian defence services, fire-fighters, wardens, repair contingents, ambulance squads, drivers, and the rest have to be brought to full strength and there main- tained.

Ninety-Third Year of Publication

3A Wyndham Street, Hong Kong.

Telephone 20022

London Office: 7, Garrick Street, London, W.C.2

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Hong Kong, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 1938.

THE HOME FRONT

A fully recruited, fully trained.

civilian air defence service is now generally accepted as es- sential to British safety. In the event of war the first aim of the enemy might be to deliver a knock-out blow from the air] at nerve centres.

It would probably take the form of continuous bombing of con- gested areas in order to destroy the will to resist without which no Government could long con- tinue the struggle. What has happened in Spain and in China holds no analogy for Britain. Franco has been able at intervals to bomb cities of up to a million inhabitants with a few score of planes. London offers as a target eight million people packed in the most vulnerable corner of the the kingdom, and there is no tence that even the most ela- borate and efficient system of and guns, fighting aircraft, barrages could, wholly save them from attack.

In comparison with the vast and invertebrate bulk of China Britain is a State with a high- ly complex nervous system the disturbance of which, at even a few points, would be disas- trous if the emergency is not carefully prepared for. The "totalitarian" countries have

;

The differences in progress in this work are vast. London, which we think of as bearing the first brunt of air attack, is well forward in some boroughs and lamentably lax in others. Liverpool, an obviously important strategic point, has admitted a shortage of gas masks, tren- ches, and even sandbags, which she is making haste to repair. Manchester still lacks 2,500 war- "dens and 2,000 fire-fighters. Elsewhere it is common to find in two neighbouring, townships that one is well ahead with re- cruitment and plans while the other has done next to nothing. The voluntary system will have to do better than this. Already there is a strong de . mand by public bodies and by public men to whom the idea of a compulsory organisation of the people is normally dis- tasteful that a national regis- ter should be formed and a plan devised that will distri- bute service as equally and as efficiently as possible.

What is needed now and with-

!

out delay is that energy, drive, shown by the Home Office, by and imagination. should be:

local authority, and by the in- dividual citizen. Particularly important are the plans for the moving of popu- lation. The hasty canvass of rural billets and the prepara- tions for transport made during the crisis have to be continued and perfected and some at- tempt made to estimate the number of people likely to move from all large centres. But there is another sort of eva- cuation of which account must be taken. Millions would in war be compelled to remain in tightly packed, ill-built houses for which no full protection against high explosive is pos- -sible. A raid that reached them would leave many who were not casualties homeless. long recognised that the char-It is here that the modern steel acter of another war between the Great Powers in Europe will differ, at any rate in its early stages, from any that has preceded it, and have as- signed to their people the pre- cise parts that each must play if the civil population find themselves in the front line. Here, true to tradition, Britain has left this essential aspect of defence to voluntary and local effort. It is obviously one of the greatest risks a demo- cratic State can take in defence of its faith, and it is a method that has to be justified quick- ly..

+

The recent days of intense an- xiety showed how willing all are to serve when emotion runs, high. It would be fatal to await that impulse again be fore completing plans. The agitated improvisation was a severe lesson. The plans for- warded with such haste must now, in the interval that has followed, be completed with care. There is no considerable difference of opinion about what must be done except over the amount of bomb-proof shelter it is necessary to pro- video

!

But that is one day of the many needful activities that should

and the cement blocks of flats and office buildings that have been springing up with such rapidity, particularly in the London area, would be valuable, and a survey of the refuge such buildings could offer in all cities is an obvious precaution. Meanwhile

It

slum clearance. schemes, which make for the permanent redistribution of the urban population and the removal of large numbers from danger-zones should be pro- ceeded with ̈ more vigorously than had this threat not over- taken us, for, properly consid- ered, they are an essential part of defence.

is more than fifteen years since Marshal Foch gave his opinion of the part which attack from the air would play in a future. great war, should it come. "The potentialities of aircraft attack on a large scale," he wrote, "are almost incalculable. But it is clear that such attack, ow- ing to the crushing moral effect on a nation, may impress public opinion to the point of disarming the Government and thus becoming decisive." It is the task of local authority and of, the individual citizen volun- tarily. - playing his part in. ARP. to remove that danger.

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