HONES AND FOOD FOR BRITAIN'S REFUGEES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 226, 23 September 1940, Page 8

HONES AND FOOD FOR BRITAIN'S REFUGEES.

EMERGENCY PLANS. Billeting And Transfers To Safer Areas. British Official Wireless. (Reed. 2 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 22. I Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, Minister ££ Health, in a broadcast speech, described the Government's plans for sheltering citizens who had lost their Tiome3 through the senseless and Brutal German air attacks. " He said:—"The caTe of those made homeless amidst the bombardment of air raids is now a major' activity of the Government. Many agencies are helping in the work. The local authorities have an important part to play, and Countless citizens are giving assistance flne 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 rests fairly and squarely upon the Government itself.

- "Generally speaking, our plans worked {easonably. well through all the widely {cattered raids on Britain until the violent bombings of London a fortnight ago. Then the first day or two of that fexperience 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."

.. Mr. Mac Donald continued: — "Some Hyoroughs have leeeived a heavier weight of the attack than others, 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 Jjave been less severely hit. ~ "In all these movements borough 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 flew dwellings for themselves the official billeting officer must find billets. Billetting of Thousands. • "Here again there are no rigid boundaries between borough and borough, country and country borough, or even between county and county. A host of ]>eople from most of the heavily-bombed .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. , "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 borough* 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 their own purchases obtain the furniture required for the use of the incoming householders. My friend the Chancellor of the EKchequer foots the bill. "Citizens Are Soldiers." "The migration of homeless families

into these residences ia now proceeding, . but we must never ignore the human -factors in this situation. Often those It""""""

home by enemy action, and who coukl be housed elsewhere, are reluctant to leave their own locality. Over and ove: again omnibuses have waited to take them away, but they have declined to go"This solid refusal to budge from the danger zone is partly a reminder of thd average Englishman's deep sentimeni 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."

Mr. Mac Donald concluded: "If our armies were engaged around you with the enemy you would not hesitate to give whatever shelter and succour lay in your power to our soldiers, but these London citizens are soldiers. 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 lias already inflicted defeat on the enemy. Sustain and succour them. We are" all in this busineff; together, and it is by the firm union of the whole nation that our cause will prevail."