Mr. Morrison on CD
The original gesture of the socialist-controlled city council of Coventry in abdicating its responsibility for local civil defence made some sort of sense only if viewed against the Select Committee's severe criticisms of the national arrange- ments and the Government's apparent reluctance to take these criticisms seriously. In so far as it helped to arouse public interest, which was virtually non-existent at the time, and to prick the Home Secretary into a livelier concern with the realities of the matter, it was a useful gesture. But it was no more than that. Once the council had made its point with the maximum of publicity, it should then have withdrawn gracefully and got on with the job as best it could. But the limelight must have gone to its head, and its continuing obstinacy has encouraged other Socialist councils to repeat the performance. They, and any others which might be toying with the idea of throwing up the sponge melodramatically, should take to heart the stern warning which Mr. Herbert Morrison sounds in the ` Labour Press Service '—just as the new drive for recruits to civil defence begins. It is one thing to believe that a local defence scheme based on the 1940 model is inadequate, but quite another to conclude that the existence of the hydrogen bomb renders futile any attempt at local organisation. It is true that the greater emphasis by far must now be placed on the mobile columns (and on the provision of deep shelters), but it is equally true that rescue work and fire prevention and many other tasks on the outer edges of devastated areas would necessarily be the responsibility of the local civil defence organisations. It is this which Coventry and the others so foolishly ignore. The Government may not have convinced everyone, for all its posters and advertisements, that it is tackling the problem of civil defence seriously enough; but the way for local authorities to protest is not by hitting the headlines and going on strike.' Mr. Morrison's word for this behaviour is treachery.' It is not too strong.
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