The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-01-09
LABOR News
FROM BRITAIN
PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM
GOES TO WAR
. BRITAIN OUTPUT CURVE
Q STILL ON THE UP
Loud Speakers on War-Work

cities as Coventry, Birmingham and
Bristol have revealed latent resources
in the British war organization as
well as in the qualities of the people.
1t is no secret now that these cities
suffered considerable damage. But
the scheme of regional administration
established at the outlet of the war
answered the needs arising out of To-
cal diSlocation of services and COM
munications with remarkable effici-
ency.
Mere rescue and succour are not
enough. The civilized organization
must be maintained. In city visited
by such a calamity as a night-long
raid it is imperative that the local
people should know where to turn for
information about the situation. They
want to know how to get in touch
with relatives and friends and with
those responsible for dealing with
homeless families. They want to
know what to do about getting to
and from work when communications
and transport are upset. The people
of bombed city want to know also
whether their dreadful experience has
been shared by other cities, and how
the country as whole has Jared.
To give all this information,
promptly and over wide area, when
normal communications are Interrupt
ted or even completely cut off, is an
enormous problem. Yet it was solved
at once-in fact it was solved before
hand.
The Ministry of Information, in CO.
operation with the regional authori-
ties, was on the job almost before the
raid was over.
AS dawn broke over Coventry, loud
speaker equipment mounted on lorries
was filtering through the stricken
city, and soon officials of the Ministry
We're announcing through amplifiers
all the information and instructions
the people wished to have. Radio
equipment on the loud-speaker vans
also broadcast the B. B. c. news bull
letins in the streets.
For many hours in the devastated
city these radio and speaker vans
functioned as mobile clearing centres
of information, news, advice and COM
munication.
The regional organization" Of
Britain covers the whole country. 1t
has divided Britain into thirteen
areas, each of which has it's own ar
rangements for maintaining the life
of its people, sustaining morale, and
organizing communications, transport
and supplies in circumstances of en-
ergency.
A vigorous corporate life SO goes
on which no blitzllrieg can shatter and
which no dislocation of national COM
munications will affect.
Communal feeding arrangements,
rest centres, temporary accommod-
ation for bombed out families, repairs
to houses, the provision of clothing
and furniture, arrangements for COM
pensation, the reunion of families and
the evacuation of children and aged
an infirm people from devastated
streets-all these matters the regional
authorities superintend with the CO.
operation of the cities civic authori-
ties and voluntary associations.
Air raids cannot break the morale
of a people habituated to the prac-
tce of government.
Production Still Grows
How far the intensive air raids
have affected production is question
to which Parliament has been giving
anxious attention. Debates in the
House of Commons have elected re-
assuring evidence from responsible
Ministers that Notwithstanding tempo
rary checks and Interruptions in con-
sequence of air raids, the country's
production as a whole has not gone
down.
Even in the cities which have felt
the full force of the Nazi air attack
on Britains industrial power, there
has been q maximum amount OF CO.
operation and speedy recovery.
Both the Minister without Port
folio (Arthur Greenwood) and the
Minister of Labor ernest Bevin)
testified before Parliament that the
Nazi air raids have accomplished
small results in retarding the nations
war effort. All the tests that can be
applied, Ernest Bevin assured the
House of Commons, show that in spite
of bombing and every other difficulty
the curve of output in the war trades
is rising.
Greenwood told Parliament that
British production has proceeded, in
the first fifteen months of this war,
at a far greater speed than in the
corresponding period Of the last war.
This Notwithstanding that Britain
started this war with a far greater
scale of output than she had in 1914.
Yet during the fifteen months of
the present war our output OF war
equipment has been more than tripled
and our output of some of the war
essentials has been quadrupled. Pro-
duction in the shipbuilding yards has
increased by over 50 per cent in the
last six months.
RatiOning Skill
This concentration of effort has its