London for the Ambitious.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7712, 14 January 1905, Page 3

London for the Ambitious.

(Daily Mail.) " Is London the best place for ambitious young men ? " The question is discussed and answered by no fewer than four authorities, tha Lord Pro- ' vost of Glasgnw, Mr. William JVhitelyi, Dr. Macnamara, and Sir T. Dei. war. By a majority of three to one they decide that London is to be ; avoided, and success sought by tho ' young rather in tho provinces. ' Their suffrages will not carry entire conviction. The nursery books have implanted in the youthful and plastic mind a fixed belief that in London the streets are paved- with gold. The mature resident in London knows" that this is, to., put the matter mildly, a misconception, but the childhood of the provinces has read of the immortal legend of Whit,tington, the miserable orphan, who made his way to the great city, and after a brief] and very unsatisfac- : tory experience turned his back upon ' it, to be ■recalled by tho chime of ' the Bow Belfo as he rested in what were then the open fields and pleasant pastures of Hdlloway to fortune miraculously gained'. How many thousands of young ami ardent souls of all classes has not this legend allured ; how many thousands have experienced only the disappointment of WHitllingtoti! and listened in vain for the note, of the beWs' recall ! Men forget that when the prizes are richest there the competition is fiercest, and that he who may win a fair competence, or even a fortune, in the calmer backwaters of provincial life may fail lamentably in the great vortex of energy. i Yet because the capable man is '. never content to surrender the greatest prizes without an effort, so he '. must always aim at success in Lon- i don. Nor can it be denied that the openings and opportunities which London affords to the right type of inan are mngnificant. There is always room, wc know, at the top—but only for the best. For men of ideas ianU initiative, for brain-work-ers, for those with organising capacity there is no place J ; ke the greatest city in tho world. Hut as certainly there is no place there for the mere copyist or loafer, nor will unskilled labour gain by Migration to London, where it has to pay cnprmous rents and live under the most •depressing conditions. The work in London is for the originative mind which will create new industries and faring up to the needs of (he twentieth century the obsolete conditions and old-fashioned methods that too often prevail to-day. How nutch yet remains to be achieved can be seen from the fact that London has had to 'loot to American energy for such improvements as the electrification of her underground railways, while any young Englishman familiar with the excellent systems of urban transport and transit which are now in vogue in so!' many of the large provincial towns will 'm Struck by the want of such facilities in London. We still trust lo the primitive omnfl.ms for street conveyance; the London cab remains exactly what it was twenty or thirty years ago. Even in our methods of shopkeeping, observation of foreign cities show that we have much to learn. And finally the amUiOious immigrant may point to the fact that the ranks of London's successful men wro recruited mainly from outside her gates.