TOO WELL OFF.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5097, 7 March 1927, Page 1

TOO WELL OFF.

SPOILT YOUNG NEW ZEALAND.

TOO MUCH RACING.

Most of the American visitors who sailed by the Franconia 'frOm Wellington last week were early abroad on their last day ; making tours of the bays and city,, and at one hotel the only two present, were in the bar- The,\ apparently had made no m !| vc towards refresh meat.

“Criticise us a bit,’’ pleaded the "Post’ reporter, after having warded off the customary discovery that we had a wonderful country. “That’s the first time I ever saw a woman behind a bar,” said one of them. “It would net be believed in America. Not that we have open bars there any more, but it would be against public sentiment in our country. Last night I was surprised at the extent o’f the drinking, openly, by young men and women. Of course, we have some secret drinking, but we don’t see it openly like that.” The bar was empty, except for the visitors, whose abstract interest in the shelves and their presiding goddesses seemed to intrigue the latten but, standing against the wall quite naturally, as though it were the usual place to stand in a bar, he went on. quite unperturbed : “I think you have the same trouble as we have in America. Your young people have too much money, and things are too easy for them. We have thousands of young men, born, so to speak, with an automobile in their mouths. It isn t good for the nation. I notice every little place here has its own race track, and there always seem to be races everywhere. Now, in the States each little community has its races only in' the fall (autumn), when the farmers meet. Each country centie has only one race meeting a year. It must cost New Zealanders a lot tff money every year in gambling. From what. I. can see, the young fellows think of nothing else, and the girls are also interested in the betting. Do you know that if racing took up as much time in the United States as it' does here it would be cut, down ? In Buenos Aires, in Argentina, they are the most pleasure-loving people imaginable. There they used to have races on Thursdays and Sundays all the year round. But the Government has now prohibited - the Thuisday meetings, because too much money was going to the racecourse, and people were not paying their way with itThe young folk here -must get money easily to gamble as much as they do.” HOTELS CRITICISED. Single American visitors, said the visitor, found nc, difficulty in accommodating themselves to New Zealand hotel conditions, but those who happened to- be travelling with their wives found the ladies far from satisfied. The lack of heating was a matter that called for attention. “ I saw a notice in my hotel,” he said, “that 1 would be charged 2s 6d a day for a fire, but there was no fireplace in the room. Would a charcoal heater be put in ? They are dangerous things. You seem ashamed cf lavatories here. You have them tucked away at the end of the building in some dark corner, and they are most awkward for a stranger to find at ■night,, to say nothing of his wife. Then there is not one hotel in twelve that has -running water in the bedrooms. We cannot expect you to reconstruct a hotel to suit us, but the people might put in a slop bucket, in the rooms, so that if I want to wash myself twice in the morning I do not have to take a walk.” “We find this a difficult country to spend money in. There is nothing distinctive tjo buy. We all like to take away something with us, but I sent my wife out yesterday to buy some little thing, and she came back with nothing. It seems to me that all the genuine Maori work is in the museum, and what little there is outside that is too modern, too much made for trade to have any value. People don’t seem to have the idea of assisting us. Now in Rio last trip I wanted a fair deal, so I went to an Englishman. He had not what I wanted, but he offered to get it for me. Four months after I got hcime, having left the money with him, I got the stone, good value at 6000' dollars. We want to spend.money here and we can’t.”

“Already the Franconia passengers are talking of making another Southern Hemisphere tour, and if they all like New Zealand as much as L -lo most at them will return here,” he concluded. “Do you often have it as cold here as it is now ? We feel the cold very much.” The compatriots were left in their rapt, abstract scrut,ipy of the barmaids, evidently one of the thrills of the tc,ur.