6 MAY 1949, Page 5

Scientists now admit that our planet is going through a

climatic fluctuation. Our weather is changing and, rather luckily, it is chang- ing for the better. This process, which started about twenty years ago, has ceased to be a specialised affair, apparent only to glacier- fanciers, and has become noticeable to the layman. Winters are getting shorter and summers longer, the annual period of vegetation- growth is increasing and the common cod is moving steadily north- ward to provide meals for Eskimos who up till a few years ago had never heard of this dreary fish. In Alaska and Scandinavia the forest-line is climbing higher up the mountains, and everything points to the fact that a new era is beginning. It can hardly be long before the Socialists claim credit for this. STRIX_