VISIT TO ENGLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26632, 1 December 1947, Page 6

VISIT TO ENGLAND

IMPRESSIONS GAINED BY SIR PATRICK DUFF

“GOING HAS BEEN HARD”

Some personal observations on problems and conditions in England just now were given in a broadcast address last night by Sir Patrick Duff. United Kingdom High Commissioner in New Zealand. Sir Patrick and Lady Duff have just returned from England. “ The going has been steep and hard, but certainly we have climbed, and climbed a lot,” said Sir Patrick. “I am speaking generally, for. in some respects—food for one—conditions are sometimes even harsher than in the war itself. If you are looking in Britain for the scars of war, you cer-

tainly see and feel plenty. While we were there, .the so-called economic crisis broke. “The economic difficulties in which we are labouring are not in the least unnatural; they are attributable to the nature and the extent of our contribution to the winning of the war in which we fought earliest, fought longest, fought hardest, sold the bulk of our foreign investments, sold the pasture to buy the horse, incurred heavy liabilities without thought for the future, and threw our whole internal economy out or gear in order to achieve the most total mobilisation of war requirements for ourselves and for everybody else. “The situation may get worse and even more harsh, before it is better. But what is a year or two, or even five years in the life of a great for-ward-marching nation which counts its future, as its past, not in years but in centuries?” he concluded.