OLD ENGLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 24 October 1928, Page 5

OLD ENGLAND

FRENCHMAN’S VERDICT. Despite lip-stiok and jazz, bottle and pyjama parties, and midnight mixed bathing, England is still Victorian. At least, mat is the verdict of M. Lucien Romier, chief editor of the “Figaro.” He has visited many lands, and now wants to see England and Scotland again. Not that he has not made up his mind about the island and its inhabitants. He has already done so and perhaps only to whet his appetite for his next visit, he gives his views to his readers (says a Reuter

message). “You have to go to Great Britain,” he writes, “in order to get away from British snobbery and that American snobbery which has permeated the world. In Great Britain you will still find that good fellowship, genuineness, and old provincial spirit which the British have always showered on the visitor with such exquisite courtesy.

“Nowhere in the world do the old customs of FAirope survive as in old England and honest. Scotland. Nowhere are the ravages of North and South Americanism less apparent.

“Great Britain still has her lessons to give ,but who heeds them? She struggles, but on the whole she is still in the Victorian era. A kind of heavy, overpowering spirit of the past pervades the atmosphere—the imagination and breath of the New World are missing.

‘■‘Though Jeremiahs talk of overpopulation, and high cost of living, I don’t believe their prophecies of the decline of Great Britain. Sense of national duty, respect for all that serves and represents the general interest, are visible everywhere.

“England, the head of the greatest Empire that has ever existed, is patiently and painfully seeking a fresh balance between her needs and her strength. In her search she does not seem to he able to shed the very genuine friendship her people feel towards France.”