IMPRESSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2104, 18 March 1920, Page 4

IMPRESSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN.

(By A.W.P., in The Pastoral) Review.) During- the five months of. my visit to the Homeland I covered a good deal of country. I visited the principal live stock and agricultural shows, many of the stud stockbreeders, and, in addition, several wool centres, particularly in the Bradford district. During- the whole period, with few exceptions, delightful weather attended me, and fU country never looked more beautiful. Although 1 was informed that several of the roads were in bad order because, during the war, little attention had been paid to them, yet, in comparison with the roads round Sydney, for example, they were perfection. Most of them are tarred, and one, therefore, can motor over them without being smothered in dust. The spring months were perfection, the glorious chest-, nut, laburnum, ami other trees, the ■flowering hedges and the wild dowers . making touring absolutely delightful.

In travelling through England oncshould as much as possible arrange to put up for the night at village hotels and leave the city hotels or big seaside hotels to those who wisli for swank. The country hotels I found delightful, food plentiful and cooked, “a la chez nous” with abso-> lute cleanliness. I sieved at numbers of these, and only once drew a blank. As regards cost, I found it one were satisfied with hotels other than of the class I have already excepted, that they were not by any means dear. Of eonrse, they are dearer now than they were before the war, hut plenty of good accommodation was procurable at ton shillings a day. Large numbers of pensions, within twenty minutes of London, away from the houses and, li-allie, could he found with accnmmodation at £2 12s (id a week. However, we deeided on a furnished flat, and catered for ourselves. This, when travelling, we shut up. Fur one whose business -takes one often to the city, T found that excellent lunches could he obtained tor 2s (id at numerous old-established city restaurants. It is the same with everything else, the city prices for clothes and food are fully 20 per cent, less than those in the West End, with quality as good. The glory of Loudon, to my way of thinking, lies in its wonderful parks and open spaces, and above all, Father Thames. On the Thames, from Richmond up to its source, dt is one continuous panorama of beauty and delight, and Londoners, take full advantage of it. However, there are at present many drawbacks to the usual pleasure one lias in revisiting tin: Homeland. The first is the food. Through the folly oi continuing Go--veminent control most foods arc scarce' and prices naturally keep alt the Government fixed maximum. Although there are mountains of foodstuffs in the cold stores, in the docks, and in the country, official muddlers keep their grip on them, with the result that thousands of tons are allowed to depreciate in value, or go find altogether. Butter, which one only gets occasionally, is scarce for the same reason. It pays farmers much better to sell their milk and cream than to make blitter at the fixed price. All the splendid imported butter is' sent to graders, who mix it up with various stuffs, and instead of one getting good butter when if is sold as butter, one gets stuff far worse than margarine, which is even preferable. Through the folly of price fixing, the bad quality fetches just as good a price as the host. Wherever one looks in England one sees the trail of the serpent —the Government official —and flic sooner he is removed to more useful undertakings the better for the nation. Unless one can afford a motor ear, travelling is not comfortable nowadays —another result of Government control —nor is there any hope of improvement until that is abolished. Taking all things into account, visitors to Great Britain at the presenttime have many discomforts to putup with, but one should not expect anything much better so soon after the greatest war the, world ever knew. Great Britain, with God’s help, performed miracles, and it would indeed be wonderful if things were running as smoothly as before 1914. The Empire’s curse to-day is that Government officials with little knowledge of business methods are allowed to put their fingers in every business, pie.