ABSTRACT
This book first appeared in 1939, a few months before the outbreak of World War II. For several years before then the international tension had been so acute that most thinking persons were acutely conscious of the dangers which London would face when the international situation reached its climax and the war clouds burst over Europe. The concentration of so large a proportion of the nation's population, wealth, industry, commerce and governmental institutions in the metropolitan region offered a gigantic hostage to fortune in the unknown conditions of air warfare. The lack of any coherent or efficient system of regional government greatly increased the danger of breakdown and confusion in the civil defence and other emergency services. I therefore pointed out in the concluding pages that although the suggestions for reform which I put forward were based entirely on grounds of social welfare they were equally relevant from the standpoint of national security in case of war.
