COUNTRY LIFE
AT a date when much of the population meditates a visit to the coast, the facts of pollution by oil become almost domestic. The clothes of children are in danger of suffering as the birds and fish suffer. The Council for the Preservation of Rural England—that admirable watch- dog—has been investigating a number of complaints of the pollution of South Coast beaches by black oil. The worst examples that 1 have myself seen—and suffered from—were on the West Coast, not the South. It is against the law to discharge any oily water within the territorial waters of the United Kingdom; but this would only be a partial remedy of the abuse even if it were enforced. The question is essentially inter- national, and was treated as such in some very thoughtful debates at a recent meeting of the Bird Protectors in Sweden. in the meanwhile into our own sea as well as our rivers is being daily decanted a very large amount of poisonous filth.
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