The Great Smog Like everyone elso who dislikes inhaling sul-
phuric acid and coal dust, I found myself wonder- ing, during last week's blackout, why we attach SO little urgency to the suppression of such a lethal phenomenon. In the great smog of 1952 some 4,000 people died, and it is true that this Produced the Clean Air Act, but since then im- provement has moved on leaden feet. After ten Years only a quarter of metropolitan London is smokeless,' and the proportion is far smaller in those northern cities where the problem is even Worse. Now, supposing that the casualties from smog were caused by some other phenomenon— death on the roads, for instance, or household accidents—think what an outcry there would be, What questions in the House, what faltering re- plies from Ministers! Four thousand deaths may not seem much when averaged over a year, but, if any other cause produced a thousand a day, it Would be given the treatment accorded to national catastrophes. As it is, the motto of the local authorities seems to be festina lente- slower even than the National Coal Board's pro- duction of smokeless fuels.
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