CIVILIAN MORALE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1938, Page 7

CIVILIAN MORALE

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS. Few now question the need for precautions against air raids, says the “Lancet.”' Yet acquiescence in that need opens up a gloomy prospect of nations organised for war, with their populations trained and disciplined to accept warlike preparation. British traditions and outlook make such methods of national organisation repugnant to us. Yet it is obvious that the civilian population in time of war may be as much exposed to attack as were front-line troops in the last war; and among air raid precautions must be considered not only material defence, but safeguards against breakdown of the morale of the people exposed- to attack. At first sight the situation seems hopeless, adds the “Lancet,” for how can we expect an undisciplined mass of non-comba-tants to endure without panic conditions that are supposed to call for the prolonged training of the professional soldier? We may, however, be making too low an estimate of the powers of resistance of civilised man, and when we recall that our armies in the last war were made up largely of men who had had little preparation for its horrors and beastliness, we must suppose that our civilisation does not of necessity sap our courage. . . . A people still holding to a faith in personal freedom may, against danger and threatening danger, possess a power of resistance which, based upon instincts as all our behaviour must be, is nevertheless more personal and therefore more stable than one that has been built upon the emotional state of the herd.