FRONT LINE TROOPS

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1940, Page 7

FRONT LINE TROOPS

British Official Wireless.

MUST HELP RAID VICTIMS BRITISH PLAN DESCRIBED

Rugby, Sept. 22. The Minister of Health, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, in a broadcast to-night described the Government's plans for sheltering citizens who had lost their homes through the senseless and brutal German air attacks. Mr. MacDonald said: "The care of those made homeless amidst the bombardment of the air raids is now a 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 and another, but, the main responsibility for seeing that those who ajre ejected from their homes are quickly provided with another roof, with food, clothing and other necessities, rests fairly and squarely upon the Government itself. Generally speaking our plans have worked reasonably well through all the 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. One important thlng in the war is to preserve an alert eye and mind and detect mistakes as soon as they become apparent, to correct them swiftly and turn them to advantage. Arrangements Improved. "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 has then come from other boroughs. There are omnibuses to take people from centres in the more hardly pressed boroughs to centres in those which have been less severely hit. In all of these movernents 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 official billeting officers must find bilietS. ' "Here again there are no rigid boundaries between borough and borough, country and country borough, or even, between county and county. A host of people from the most heavily bombed areas of London have recently been billeted widely outside their own boroughs. This is done either by, billeting people in other households or else by putting them into unoccupied houses. 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 suitabL empty houses to requisition those places up to their capacity to accommodate more than 20,000 persons lest that should be required, which is not the case at present. Migration Proceeding. "The migration of homeless families into these residences is now proceeding. but we must never ignore the Kuman factors in this situation. Often those who have been turned out of house and 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 senttaent and rooting in the locality of his own home and partly the evidence of how little tliese nightly bombings have shaken the nerve of those who are the victims of its fierce spite." Mr. MacDonald 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 has already inflicted defeat on the enemy. Sustain and succour them. We are all in this business together and it is by a firm union of the whole nation that our cause will prevail."