Darkening the Factories
The position with regard to the financial responsibility of the owners of factories and other commercial premises for the screening of their premises is unsatisfactory, but it would be hard to make it much more satisfactory unless the Government took the short course of bearing all the cost itself. That it has no intention of doing, and a detailed study of the Civil Defence and the Ministry of Supply Acts is necessary to make clear what it will do. In most factories the only effective way of obscuring light is by shutters—or by switching off the light—for glass obscured by paint may be shattered by a bomb—and in the case of premises where work of national importance is in progress that cannot be done. Work here is continued " under corn- puls:on," and the Minister of Supply may make a contri- bution equal to the 1939-4o income-tax figure, i.e., 5s. 6d. in the f, towards the cost. Where shuttering is installed voluntarily the Treasury will allow deduction of the expendi- ture in computing trading profits for income-tax purposes, which means, here too, that 5s. 6d. in the £ will be remitted. In either case, therefore, the factory-owner has to pay over 7o per cent. of the cost. That is a substantial burden, though no doubt it is something to have 11/4oth remitted.
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