The interest and significance of the postwar municipal elections held in Britain can best be appreciated if they are seen against wartime conditions on the one hand and the reconstruction tasks which confront local authorities on the other.

In England, as elsewhere, local government was designed to promote the arts of peace. But for six years during World War II it was asked to shoulder burdens of the most formidable kind directly connected with the war effort. The decision to make local authorities responsible, under the guidance of the Ministry of Home Security and its regional commissioners, for the complex of functions comprised under civil defense was a momentous one. Never before in Britain or any other country had local authorities been asked to undertake a task of such magnitude and importance as that of providing air-raid shelters, wardens and fire-guard posts in almost every street, gas decontamination centers, light and heavy rescue squads, evacuation schemes, emergency feeding and reception centers for those rendered homeless by enemy air attack, furniture stores, rest homes, a first-aid repair service for houses, and various other items of this kind.

The Ministry of Food placed heavy duties on both local-government officers and councilors in connection with food control and rationing; and local authorities provided cheap restaurants and canteens on a large scale. The Ministry of Fuel and Power drew largely on the resources of municipal administration in appointing local fuel overseers and their staffs for regulating the distribution and consumption of solid and liquid fuel.