A £20,000,000 Shelter Scheme The comprehensive scheme for the provision
of air-raid shelters outlined by- Sir John Anderson in the House of Commons on Wednesday must be judged for what it is. Several Opposition members questioned the Minister closely on the deep-tunnel scheme designed to provide protection even against direct hits. That, obviously, is the ideal from the point of view of protection, though the cost is formidable. But there is a decisive argument in favour of a short-term scheme. Professor Haldane, the chief advocate of tunnel protection, estimated in his book A.R.P., that it would take two years to construct tunnels for London. In that period a European war will either have broken upon us or been averted altogether ; that at any rate is a reasonable assump- tion. There may be, in fact is, little foundation for the prevalent and unwisz predictions of war next spring, but it is true none the less that war within a period not of years but of months is the contingency against which we have to make provision. Sir John Anderson made it quite clear that the long-term tunnel scheme is not ruled out, but that the immediate need is for a short-term scheme, and the layman must to a large extent be content to trust the Minister's advisers regarding the efficacy of the protection now proposed. The steel shelters, trenches, considered evacuation plans and active anti-aircraft measures, both on the ground and in the air, should between them be sufficient to reduce very materially the potential loss of life in air-raids. * * * *
