British Reconstruction Associations

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A BBOADSHEET entitled “British Reconstruction Agencies”recently issued by PEP (Political and Economic Planning) affords a valuable supplement to the summary of research activities in this field in-eluded in the “Destruction and Reconstruction”issue of the Architectural Review of last July. Apart from its handier form for reference, the broadsheet includes, in addition to particulars of official agencies for physical reconstruction and of committees and voluntary organizations concerned with particular aspects, notes on the Inter-Allied Relief Bureau groups working for the Allied Governments, and organizations for the study of international reconstruction. An introductory note stresses the importance of a bold reconstruction policy as an essential part of the War effort. This was emphasized by Sir Stafford Cripps early in March and is one of the keynotes of an admirable report “The Old World and the New Society”, issued by the Labour Party last month. The greatest weakness of British studies on reconstruction at present, says the broadsheet, is that they are not clearly enough linked with the War effort, and while many regard 1942 as the decisive year of this War, fewer seem aware that it may equally be the decisive year for the peace. Both may be lost if we cannot now convert the fight of the United Nations into a genuine crusade for a supreme moral principle and for the building of a people's civilization out of the civilization of a privileged few. Great Britain in particular needs to grasp this relationship of reconstruction policy to the War effort, and to recognize that the vision of a new order at home and abroad is an indispensable weapon both in the waging of a war and in the winning of a peace.