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Show Britain Will Come Through Copyright, 1947 By Maon R. Smith -. London, July 10 A British tipwspapcrman writing writ-ing in the Evening News of this date described it as "grey- rainswept, rain-swept, battered, unconqucrcd London." Hq.Vas writing of the King's unveiling .of the Battle of Britain Memorial chapel in Westminster Abbey this morning, morn-ing, but the "phrase would be apt on any occasion in this great city, in these times. The rain comes down lightly and intermittently all day long the reason,' indeed, why the conventional ' caricature of a British businessman shows him with a furled, umbrella in one hand and a raincoat in the other. Years qf coal.soot from literally millions of chimney pots the outstanding characteristic of all British towns', have darkened the massive ,t monuments and public buildings, old and new, and the scars "of the war are visible onvejey hand. The "Jerries," "Jer-ries," so the, British said, made no attempt at precision bombing but scattered, their sticks of bombs indiscriminately. The result re-sult is that vhile occasionally whole city blocks were blasted out the Vacant spaces now' used as parking lots the principal prin-cipal damage' is spread here and there in small sections all over the city. Yqu get bit of a shock as you go down'almost any street, . to note a sudden, great gash in ' the face of Lhe building a hole in the facade of the thoroughfare. thor-oughfare. There it stands, empty emp-ty and desolate, the interiors of rooms gaping'out into the street, weeds and wild flowers growing in the debris that fills what was the basement. ' It may be a church, with its roof caved in, the steel gindcrs twisted and broken sticking up into the sky, or it may be an apartment or office building, now partly occupied, oc-cupied, the "Vsable section still standing chipped and pockmarked pock-marked frord the blast, Other structures are framed in outside out-side steelwork to hold them together, to-gether, and Some are padlocked as unsafe. The cleanup has been amazing, amaz-ing, considering the extent of the damage, but reconstruction and restoration are held up for scarcity of building materials. The Briton "takes it" without apparently noticing it not lightly and not grimly, though he recalls the terror of those days. And although Nazi bombs have destroyed much of what he has loved and cherished, strangely enough the Londoner seems to bear no hatred toward the Germans . -. ; "Perhaps it's because," a London Lon-don importer told me at tea this afternoon, "we have so much to do." It has been said for years both here and abroad that the British are most splendid and glorious when they are "in the pinches." They are in such a position nowj They are grim about it as they look toward another Fuel Crisis this winter, and a Food Crisis before that. The newspapers, magazines and the comedians in the musical musi-cal shows are inclined to blame it all on the Labor government, but a careful study of notes taken in hundreds of conversations conversa-tions with the people in all walks of life suggests that in general the people favor the Labor party, though they think Mr. Atlee's government has made some serious mistakes. Mistakes which, one Conservative Conserva-tive admitted, might, well have been made by Churchill's Coali tion if it had been kept in power. pow-er. 'The times have a lot to do with it," he said. There is a terrific shortage of dollars" in Britain, and the money mon-ey loaned by (the United States is very nearly, all used up. To buy the things she needs in American markets food (especially), (es-pecially), building materials, machinery ma-chinery Britain needs dollars. Money she has loaned to countries coun-tries in the so-called sterling bloc has in Vnany cases been converted to dollars, which puts a further strain on Britain. So she is exporting all that she can, to obtain more American Ameri-can dollars to fight her way up again. This. means that the people peo-ple must stand by to watch all kinds of goods which they themselves them-selves seriously need automobiles, automo-biles, machinery, textiles, even whiskey shipped abroad. It hurts, but they take it stolidly stol-idly "because we HAVE to do it to survive." They don't like the food rations -p "the ration for one person for one month would not cover your teacup saucer one egg a month, half a pound of meat .a week." J And they don't like the cloth ing ration. A businessman, who feels that he "must be decent to meet the trade," finds it hard to obtain the clothing he needs for lack of coupons. If he buys clothes for himself, the rest of his family must go. without. There is, accordingly, a black market in- coupons sold by "shiftless people who always wear old clothes anyway" and a pound ($4.03 in our money) mon-ey) will buy one person's clothing cloth-ing ration. Britain's situation becomes all the more grim with the falling off of production in the coal mines. These are now nationalized; national-ized; there are about the same i number of men "in the pits" as (before the war; their wages are better and working conditions are. slightly improved (just slightly for in general they do not have machinery such as that used in American coal mines); and they have a five day week. But there are frequent "wildcat strikes", and workstoppages workstop-pages condemned by the unions un-ions and the government alike. The latter is threatening to prosecute. pro-secute. One reason for the low production, produc-tion, seems to be in the. food situation. sit-uation. As one Briton put-it: "I used to have a lot of drive; up early in the worning, work hard all day. I know that my rations ra-tions are not enough for before be-fore the morning is over I'm all tired out. Although the min ers get a larger ration, they, too, don't get enough. Coal mining is hard work it takes food." A sign outside the entrance to the Hotel Russell dining room reads: "Don't ask for bread unless un-less you need it." But the hotels and their dining rooms are occupied oc-cupied largely by travellers, British and foreign serve meat with every meal. Housing is equally bad. Some dwellings have been erected but are unoccupied for months for lack of plaster and wall board "fitments" as the British call them. "P.refabs" have sprung up all over England but these are merely temporary until better homes are available. "I'm a bit worried," one Britisher Brit-isher told me. "the prefabs put un in 1917-18 nftpr thp "First World War, have been occupied ever since. I rather think these new ones will be, for a long time to come." The big complaint against the Labor government is principally that they have tried to impose their socialistic program too soon. "It would have been better," bet-ter," you hear people say, "not to have attempted that now. We need to get back on our feet first. The program is a good one. in the long run, but now is not the time." " . A number also express the fear that the change from the Churchill government to the Labor La-bor party may have injured British Brit-ish relations with America. They are frankly worried that it has. There is an earnest desire for friendship cooperation genuine friendship as well as political and economic and a deep fear that something may happen to mar it. That something might be what many people to whom I have talked consider the extravagance of the Labor government. For example, estates have been purchased pur-chased for "regional offices," at several hundred thousand dollars dol-lars each, when existing facilities facili-ties used during the war might have been occupied until the present crisis is past. The future for Britain as seen by the average Britisher is gloomy indeed. They like we are tired of slogans, tired of shortages, tired "of queuing up" in breadlines and meatlines and for trams and cinemas and what-not. For escape they are jamming the theatres and movie houses night after night, travelling travel-ling to Scotland . and Ireland when they can. They are a very old people. The sooted buildings which surround sur-round them have looked down upon hundreds of generations who have gone before. The symbols sym-bols of Britain's mighty days are all about them the political leaders, the great generals and admirals, writers and clergymen looked down from heroic statues and in many an ancient painting. paint-ing. But these people look forward for-ward and upward, stolidly but with a kind of gallantry, too. The tall Nelson monument witlvthe grim lions at its base on Trafalgar Square is a powerful piece of sculpture. It is very simple, but strong in its design. It tells you this monument oL strength that somehow, no matter what the worst may be Britain will come through. I have yet to meet a Briton who isn't absolutely confident that she will regardless of what the future holds. |