"They are not like the German people always wondering how long it is going to go on, fearful of what will happen to them if they lose, apathetic at the prospect of victory. In Britain the men and women who work in factories and sleep, some of them, in subways or air raid shelters, have a very definite idea of the future and you will find it wherever you go; it is happiness at the thought of a victorious conclusion to their present task of winning the War and happiness in the knowledge that their lives will then be better than before.
"Incendiary bombs have, it is true, caused a great deal of material damage, but the problem of fire and many other problems which were quite beyond the scope of local government machinery to deal with are now being taken in hand.
"The nationalization of the fire-brigades is a step in the right direction in the "Battle of the Flames." The proper organization of fire-watching is another.
"The individual whose home is destroyed, is invariably cheerful about it, but he must live somewhere. Prevention of the spread of fires is the best precaution against an acute housing problem, but other measures such as the provision of prefabricated huts which can be easily transported and quickly erected are needed too.
"These are some of the practical effects of bombings and measures taken or to be taken to cope with the effects of air raids.
"I should like to tell you something now about the psychological effect of being bombed. Someone has said that even the Elizabethans who thought that practically everything and anything could be seen, heard, done and undergone with' profit, would have hesitated to include being bombed among this list. But once the ordeal is over there is an un-dentable gain to offset the losses.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.