A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THERE is an aspect of the present emergency on which too little emphasis has been laid—that is the vast increase of responsibility thrown inevitably on local authorities every- where in connexion with A.R.P. in all its immense ramifi- cations, and the consequent need for a marked improvement in the personnel of local bodies of all kinds, from parish councils upwards. That implies no reflection on the existing members of such bodies ; but there is hardly a locality in which some half-a-dozen men or women could not be found peculiarly qualified by knowledge, experience, ability, and perhaps the command of leisure to strengthen a parish, or an urban or rural, or perhaps pre-eminently a London borough, council. Membership of such bodies may not in itself par- ticularly attract them, still less the process of getting elected thereto, but it may very properly present itself in the form of a public duty, and I am glad to see that the new Asso- ciation for Service and Reconstruction very rightly lays stress on local government work as an essential part of national service in the broad sense.
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