3 SEPTEMBER 1932, Page 3

The Making of Swimmers One of the swimming instructors engaged

by the News-Chronicle, whose learn-to-swim campaign has been a service of real value to the country, has made the striking statement that 20,000 men, women and children have been taught to swim this season in a single lesson. Far more than that, of course, have learned the art in the course of three or four lessons, and the result has been the wide popularization of what is at once an accomplishment and a recreation, and both a means of acquiring health and, often enough, of preserving life. But the more swimmers there are, the more swimming-baths are .needed. Open-air pools are a great deal -better than nothing, and they can for the most part be constructed by unemployed labour and cost little enough to be fit subjects for private benefaction. But the real need is for warmed baths for winter. The cost here is greater, but there are few more legitimate forms of expenditure for local authorities.