SOCIAL CHANGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1941, Page 7

SOCIAL CHANGE

EFFECT OF EVACUATION FROM LONDON WHOLE FUTURE OUTLOOK ALTERED. ROTARY CLUB ADDRESS. Changes which will probably affect the whole business and social structure of England, arising out of the evacuation from London last September, were dealt with by Mr A. H. Gray (Wellington) in an address at the Masterton Rotary Club yesterday afternoon. Mi’ Gray spent some time in England prior to and after the outbreak of war.

Mr Gray elaborated on the organisation required to shift 2,400,000 women and children from London without accident in three days, last September. He contrasted it with the fact that the Kelburn cable cars (Wellington) handled 1,000,000 passengers a year, while the London underground railways handled 2,400.000,000 passengers per annum. The children were taken into the homes of the gentlefolk of England, some voluntarily while others were not. It was a great impressment service.

"All the awful stories heard out here of these children are not as bad as the truth,” said Mr Gray. In quoting instances in point, he said that in a single village 2.000 stations were set up to treat children. Many of the children slept under the beds the first night or so because they did not know any better. Hundreds would not sleep! between sheets, because they thought, "only corpses did that.” “The position, however, is really serious,” continued Mr Gray. The result of the evacuation was the beginning of a social revolution. For the first time children from the slums learnt of the conditions and privileges which other children enjoyed. The foster parents experienced a similar change in outlook. The continuing effect, socialogically, on the future of children and foster parents would be that conditions could never go back to the old way again, said Mr Gray. For the first time people had awakened to the fact that the conditions under which the children were brought up were inhuman. All business men he had met agreed that a social change had to come. "If nothing else comes out of this war the social change will be the most beneficial, at least to our own people,” said Mi’ Gray. The speaker gave details of the evacuation of professional and business houses from London. He stressed the difficulties of accommodation, transport, staffing, control and communications. Mr Gray said that their efforts deserved the utmost sympathy and understanding from business houses at this end. The men did not evacuate because they were frightened, said MiGray. It was simply that they could not afford to live in London. He quoted the case of a business man who earned £150,000 per annum and paid £123,000 in income tax. Another man he had met paid £83,000 tax out of an income of £lOO.OOO. Mr Gray referred to a broadcast made by Mr Churchill in which he challenged the German Navy to come out for battle. At the same time Mr Churchill gave a promise that he would send out only the ships the Germans said they had sunk. In conclusion Mr Gray dealt with his personal observations in Hyde Park, London. _____