SHELTER AND SUCCOUR

Evening Star, Issue 23688, 23 September 1940, Page 5

SHELTER AND SUCCOUR

LONDON'S AIR RAID VICTIMS GOVERNMENT'S HEAVY RESPONSIBILITY DETAILS OF ARRANGEMENTS (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 22. (Received September 23, at 11.30 a.m.) Mr Malcolm MacDonald, Minister of Health, broadcasting, described the Government’s plans for sheltering citizens who have lost their homes through the senseless and brutal German air attacks. Mr MacDonald said: “The care of those made homeless amidst the bombardment of air raids is now the major activity of the Government. Many agencies are helping in the work. Local authorities have an important part to play, and countless citizens are giving assistance 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, with food and clothing and other necessities rests fairly and squarely upon the Government itself. Generally speaking, our plans worked reasonably well

through all 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. CORRECTING MISTAKES. “ Ore important thing in war is to preserve an alert eye and mind to detect mistakes as soon as they become apparent and correct them swTftly and turn them to advantage. So in the past two weeks we have greatly improved our arrangements for looking after the homeless.” Mr MacDonald continued; ‘‘Some boroughs have received a heavier weight of attack than others and have at times found their - centres temporarily crammed to capacity. Aid then has come from other boroughs. There are omnibuses to take people fro; centres in the more hardly-pressed boroughs to centres in those which have been less severely hit. In all these movements borough boundaries have been swept aside. Different areas are helping each other. The London defence region, which is even wider than that of the London County Council, 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 the most heavily bombed areas in London has 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. EMPTY HOUSES USED. ■‘ All 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 capacity to accommodate more than 20,000 persons, lest that should be required, which is not the case at present. A local authority can take over furnished houses if it likes, or it can requisition unfurnished houses and itself acquire from Government stocks or by its our purchases the furniture required for the use of incoming householders. My friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer foots the bill. PEOPLE UNWILLING TO LEAVE. “ The migration of homeless families into these residences is now proceeding, but we must never ignore the human factors in this situation. Often those who have been turned out of house am, 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. This solid refusal to budge from the danger zone is partly a reminder of the average Englishman’s deep sentiment rooting in the locality of his own

home, and partly evidence of how little these nightly bombings have shaken the nerve of those who have been victims of the Nazis’ fierce spite.” LONDON IN THE FRONT LINE Mr MacDonald concluded; ‘‘lf 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 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 already inflicted defeat on the enemy. 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.”