OVERDOING THEMSELVES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 11

OVERDOING THEMSELVES.

Sir Thomas Sutherland ad da his testimony to the evidence furnished from other quarters as to the way in which many English and American people were discouraged from going to the Durbar. He states that the first demands made by the Indian Administration for accommodation at so excessive that they "shut the door" iji the face of intending visitors, and when more moderate terms were offered a few months later much of the original enthusiasm for the Indian festivities had evaporated. Of course, & large number of English society people made the journey, but what Sir Thomas Sutherland means is that, as there was no great crowd, the affair was a disappointment from the shipowners' point of view. Even the splendid new liner Maloja is only credited with a "fair number of passengers." Thus the Durbar, like the Coronation in England, and various earlier events, illustrates the stupid tendency of show organisers in general to assume that tao number of peoplo who are willing to pay fancy prices for pleasure is very much larger than it really is. One sees the same blunder operating in tho extravagant charges demanded bv caterers in London, and in tUe niutipiication of big. hotels, whose grasping owners in somo cases keep out of the bankruptcy courts with difficulty. It was indeed the intervention of tho London Bankruptcy Court in ouo instance not long ago that put an end to tho building of 6uch places. The public are getting constantly more wary, and none are mora reudy to resent any attempt to "rook" them than well-to-do Amoricans. It is due to their influence as tourists that the best hotels on the Continent are now content with reasonable charges for the accommodation they offer.