A .R .P . Black -Out The " black-out "
which took place in fifteen counties last Saturday night was certainly a valuable experience for those who took part in it, whether actively or passively. One of the most important problems in civil defence must be to ensure that ordinary members of the public, not assigned any specific task, shall learn to co-operate with those more actively engaged by not showing lights and by taking other precautions, and, above all, shall learn to carry out their normal duties in the office, the factory or the home under the strange and alarming conditions of a " black-out " or of a day-time raid. From the enemy's point of view the essential test of whether a series of raids is a success or not must be the extent to which it has interfered with the normal work of production, distribu- tion and exchange—especially production. It is, therefore, satisfactory to know that the public were at great pains to hide lights, and accepted various inconveniences with resignation. There appear to have been certain delays due to the insufficiently specific character of messages, but this is precisely the technical kind of defect which it is the whole object of an exercise to discover.
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