OFFICIAL TESTS MASK STRONTIUM PERILS

by our Science Correspondent, J. H. Bradley Government experiments on the uptake of strontium 90 by plants could hardly have beem-designed to give a more unreliable and misleading picture of the dangers of H-bomb tests.

The results showed that ‘less than one per cent’ of the strontium present was taken up in a certain test. But the trials took place on chalk downland at Compton (Berks). Chalk is 99 per cent calcium carbonate— and it is precisely calctum which strontium can replace in a plant or an animal.

The result quoted may even indicate that some plants prefer strontium to calcium—only there is very hitde strontium 260 RUSSIANS HAVE H-TEST DISEASE As Britain explodes her first H-bomb over the Pacific, comes news that there are at Icast 200 Rossians sulfering from exposure to radioactivity. This figure (writes our Bonn correspondent) is given in a letter from Professor Bugdszarov, of a Moscow research inelitufe, to Dr. Siegmund Schmidi, of Vérden, near Osnabruck, « specialist in blood diseases. Dr. Schmidt has been advising the Russians on treatment.

compared to calcium in most soils. Certain shellfish have a definile preference for strontium in their shells. when they can get it, Apart from this calculated unreliability. there are many uncertainties in the experiments. Not all types of plants behave alike: we are not told in what chemical combination or as how fine a powder the strontium was applied.

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ABOUR has proved its strength this week, and the Tories have revealed their weakness and disunity. ‘The net gain of 316 seats in the English and Welsh local elections shows that the tide has turned once and for all against Macmillan. The resignation of eight Tory MPs and a Tory peer shows how shifting are the sands en which his administration is built, The crisis within the Tory Party goes vastly deeper than these few defections indicate. There will be refusals to vote for the Government. There will be more resignations. including perhaps that of Lord Lambton as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Selwyn Lloyd. No one has much doubt that the next General Election will see the tiumphant return of a new Labour Government. The question is: how soon?

The answer lies very largely in the hands of the active Labour Party workers in the constituencies. They see far clearer than some of their leaders in the Commons the urgent need to oust this employers’ government. They ure closer to those who suffer at its hands: INDUSTRY