To Fight the Foreigner.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 15 April 1910, Page 4

To Fight the Foreigner.

Antipodean visitors to London have of to n commented on the fact that in niiu'-ti.'!i.tii.s of the hotels and restaurants they patronise they art .served by foreigners. It is undoubtedly a fact.that the foreign waiter dominates the situation! as restaurants are concerned, and that in the majority of London huted.s tht , foreigner rules thw roost in kitchen, hill, and dining salcon. Foreign waiters in London alone nundnr at the present tinio no le:-f than 130,000. Tho reason for their popularity is easily explained, says a Homo paper. They are better trained as waiters, they are cheaper tliiJin Englishmen and are much less independent tlian tho average lioine-bretl article. Von cannot heat a really first-dais waiter, hut l'e is a '"'rare bird" nowadays. mv\ it miiKt lie confessed thai tin? ordinary run of waiters are luiK'h inferior to the average Omit mental. Tho reason is thn.t many of them lU'iviv <jo in!; the business to occupy their tiin:• Tiiri<i <•_; periods of slnckir. l :s in Hieir proper 'trades, or to supplement tbeir earnings in other walks nl' life. The majority cort.M'idy h\v ■ iM'Vi'-r had any sps-v-i'il traiinn. ,^ sue' , is tii- , French, Italian, Kwi'-s, a:;- 1 German waiters cro and verv few of them possess what mav be '.villed the "ennvet waiter in."rii'T." They are apt. to b« j-'lr.w, clumsy, :i:id uncivil if n. cistoi'ier happens to displease tlu'iu. Tf[K ALIKX WAITKI?. Ti;i> .supremacy id' the alien waiter i.-; iir>w to be by a ■ lew instil tit ion callr-d the Loyal I'ritish Waiters' Society, which, is making a ('etermined attcinpt to de|;'se t'ie fcrei'/iier and reinstate th:f'ritisli waiter. The objret of the society is to provide eiiiployiiioiit for Hritish-born waiters w';o are reliablu and loya.l, and whom the society <■:• n recommend with coniidencu to employers. To this en:! the .society h-ns instituted a. school of instruction at ,i restaurant in Surrey street, Strand, where a number of men will be taught those essentials which will pain for them the confidence of hotel proprietors. It is a laudable campa ijxn that Hie L.B.V.'.S. has institated, but it is to ln« feared that many years must elapse- ero anv Kiibst-.nnti.al proportion of London's IHO 000 forei'mi waiters will be displaced by the native article.