A.R.P. in Chelsea Chelsea is to be congratulated on the
success of its A.R.P. exercises held this week ; yet the reports which have appeared in the Press throw an alarming light on this country's continued apathy towards the most vital of its defences. The Chelsea exercises are described as not a serious test or rehearsal but an experiment, and as one paper complacently remarked, no one took them " too seriously." This light-hearted attitude may well cost many lives one day. Chelsea's exercises, experimental as they were, are the first of the kind that have taken place in London ; yet it is the essence of air-raid precautions that all concerned, including the public, should know what to do and where to go if the " real thing " occurs. Every town and borough which takes its duties seriously should hold regular practices until its entire population is thoroughly acquainted with the procedure to be followed in an emergency ; only by such means can unnecessary panic be avoided. In Berlin or Tokyo the civilian population is drilled thoroughly in the part it has to play in A.R.P., yet neither city is so fatally exposed as London or other towns in this country. It appears that Britons still think they can muddle through even an air raid.
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