10 JANUARY 1941, Page 2

The Re - making of Britain It has been suggested that there

might be some overlapping between Mr. Greenwood's field of inquiry and that of Lord Reith as Minister of Works and Buildings. Planning for re- building might indeed be regarded as coming under Mr. Greenwood's investigations, but the field to be surveyed by Lord Reith is at the same time so vast and so specialised that it is rightly allotted to a department of its own. Without that there will be enough and to spare for Mr. Attlee and his group to consider. There will be the problem of demobilisation of servicemen and their assimilation in industry ; the problem of preparing suitable public works for the absorption of labour ; the problem of public expenditure, and the continuation or discontinuation of war-time services in peace ; and questions of health, nutrition, education, housing, the return of evacuees, the location of industry. An imaginative survey of the whole field of the social services has to be undertaken, and, if possible, in such a way as to unite the good will of all classes and all parties, so that the same energy which is now given to the war may be switched over to the making of a Britain fit to be an example to the defeated countries.