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45
indicated in this interim report. But we feel bound to point out that such
work will be merely of academic interest and can lead to no material
improvement unless there is general acceptance of the fact that the cure
will require heavy expenditure and full co-operation of all persons and
all interests."
Smoke arises almost entirely from the inefficient and wasteful combustion
of bituminous coal. Smoke elimination in the industrial usages
of coal is largely a matter of installing proper equipment for efficient
combustion. The domestic chimney is the hard core of the smoke
abatement problem. Bituminous coal cannot be burnt without smoke in
domestic appliances. The problem of eliminating domestic smoke is
essentially the replacement of bituminous coal by solid smokeless fuel
supplemented by gas and electricity for summer water and space heating.
The Ridley Committee in their report last year stated:—
"(2) One heavy social cost to the community is the smoke pollution
usually produced when raw coal is burnt inefficiently. It is impossible
to measure all this cost in money. Estimates have been cited from time
to time for parts of it. In real terms it is certainly enormous, as every-day
observation in our large towns and cities shows—most clearly to those
who know conditions abroad, where less coal is burnt raw in inefficient
conditions. Among the social costs are the loss of sunlight and the harm
to the health of the citizens, the reduction in the amenities of town life,
the damage to buildings and textile fabrics, the extra costs of painting,
washing and laundry, and the loss of food production which results from
the smoke deposit in the countryside around the towns. These are only
some of the main losses which the community endures through smoke.
"(3) But apart from the losses which the community suffers from
smoke pollution, there is the inefficiency of which smoke is the visible
symptom.
"(4) The main sources of smoke pollution in the United Kingdom
are:—
(i) The millions of households which use raw coal burnt in old-
fashioned open grates as the main source of heat comfort.
There are perhaps 12 million such open fires in regular use—
and producing a million tons of smoke. Thus the townsman
pays heavily for smoke, both directly as a coal consumer, and
indirectly as a citizen living in dirty air.
(ii) Smaller industrial boilers and furnaces burning raw coal.
(iii) Steam railway locomotives."
The Committee expressed the view that the more general adoption of
smoke abatement bye-laws by local authorities and the establishment of
more smokeless zones depends on having enough smokeless fuels and
suitable appliances and went on to say that as they became available
there was a good case for more widespread declaration of smokeless
zones in the causes both of reducing the social costs of smoke pollution
and of improving fuel inefficiency.
The Housing Committee at their meeting on the 18th December
considered on the recommendation of the Public Health Committee, the