Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1921. THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1921, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1921. THE WEEK.

Thh party of eighteen tourists who are now enjoying a sightseeing tour through New Zealand were in the main induced to undertake the visit as a result of Sir Thomas MaeKonzie’s addresses at Home lauding this countfy as a tourist’s paradise. The visitors admit the picture was not overpainted. They have been in New Zealand since December 6th., spending most of their time in the South Island. Everyone of the visitors is enthusiastic about the beauties of New Zealand alpine scenery, of which tlie v saw a good deal at Mount Cool: ■‘lt is the variety that charms us” said Mr Edward Gray to a Christchurch pressman on arrival here last week. “The views are always changing. Your Alps bring up memories of Switzerland, but the air is. wonderfully different. Here is is buoyant and bracing all the time.” Mr Gray is the organiser of a tour that began in October, when the party left England by way of Suez for Australia and New Zealand. Three months ago not one of the people with him had been further south than the Equator. Now they have had experiences and gathered impressions that no guide book jn the world could ever hope to set down. The visitors decided to seo New Zealand thoroughly from one end to the other. they left Wellington immediately after arrival, and going on to Lyttelton went overland to the Bluff. The next stage was tho visit to the Cold Lakes. “Queenstown,” said Mr Gray, ‘is a town with unrivalled situation and cramped accommodation. Tt needs development. Tho hotels there are splendid, hut they ought to he enlarged. Not till then will the possibilties of Queenstown become apparent. We found the Cold Lakes district full of attraction and, iT it were advertised in Europe', you would have thousands coming where you now have hundreds. The distance is nothing. People nowadays like to overcome difficulties. The view that impressed most round the Cold Lakes was that towards tho Pompolone Hut. It was grand. “After Dunedin we came t» Mount Cook past “mse lovely lakes Tekapo and Puknki, and so into the ranges of snow. Here Switzerland was put in the shade entirely. The scenery was indescribable. Then there were the excursions. They reminded mo of the words in Nansen’s ‘Farthest North’; ‘Some of the beautiful movements of life are those when you have just completed a journey.’ Switzerland was a well-trodden path. Mount Cook has hundreds of corners unexplored. Let anyone suffering from nerves to go there for a rest. In six weeks they will he better than they had ever been before. The mountains lift you out of yourself. What an asset you people in tin; South Island have with your Alps. Having decided to see New Zealand thoroughly it is a matter for regret that the party omitted Westland from their itinerary.

Tin's is an omission which should lu> remedied in the future hy reminding the general and private tourist agencies of the special charm this district possesses as a unique tourist resort providing every phase of natural scenic glorv.

The universal question of the cost of living has heen an acute one in France, particularly in Paris, where for the lastthree years or so the profiteer was found a prolific hunting ground, recently, however, there has heen soup* improvement. Clothing, especially, has become less dear, and when the last mail left the newspapers were predict-

ing a general fall in JJfitAs.- The Paris correspondent of the’ London “Daily Telegraph” gives two explanations of these reductions. Gne is “a strike of consumers,” aild another the drastic way in which a special Court lias been dealing with speculators convicted of forcing up prices illegally. “This Court,” he writes, “has just sent to prison for periods ranging from two to six months and fined up to 5000 francs several dishonest persons found guilty of increasing the price of Hour, paste, foods and meat. Apparently the decree issued some time ago, providing for heavy penalties against people who left their own particular businesses for the purpose of speculating in commodities is having its effect. It requires no special knowledge to take possession of stocks and sell them at an immense profit. The robbery is barefaced, and to tight against it certain newspapers are now selling cloYhing ami groceries at greatly reduced prices.

“WJB'may have disturbances like the Amritsar riot, but the hulk of the Indian population are solidly in favour of the British. They know the benefits of British rule.” This statement was made by Miss Alice Henderson who nos spent twenty five years in missionary work both in the south and the north ot India, and has mastered the Tamil and Urdu languages and some of the local dialects. She also ireplied in the negative to the question, put by a. Christchurch reporter, whether a rising against British rule in India might he feared. Miss Henderson took a very hopeful view of the future ot India, and she gave some extremely interesting facts regarding the latest trend of missionary effort, and its effect on Indian national aspirations. “No one who thinks sanely imagines that India is in a position to govern terself,*’ Miss Henderson added. “The Indians arc not a nation, and cannot hang together long enough to make a road. They have not that in them which makes them able to pull together. There is not in India any such thing as the common good. It is the Hindu for the Hindu, the Brahmin for the Brahmin, the 11011-Brahmin for the nonBrnhmin, and so on. They see it themselves for they are trying to bring about some sort of brotherhood between themselves and the Mohammedans. While the place is like that, how can one think it would! be possible to select a body of men who would run t lit* country for the people’s good? Any reform movement that has been 1 success has been carried out by Indians (nonChristians of course) who have been educated hv missionaries, You do not find u Hindu or Mohammedan coming out of a Hindu or Mohammedan college who has any of the ideas of a Hindu or Mohammedan that come .nit of a Christian college. He never breaks away. The Hindu is essentially a selfseeker—his own rights and his <.wn family rights count. He has no ilea of the welfare of the people of his i il]age except that lie has enough humanity to distribute food in times of famine. If that is so, where will they gel those aims and ideals that " ill govern the country. These men who are imitating have all been to England, Germany or America, and have come hack filled with Western ideas.”