CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1917, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

DEAKNESS OF FOOD.

Writing to his people, Sergeant Hudi Fraser says:—The change in London "is not so marked as one would expect, though in one or two respects the influence of the roiar can be seen. There seems to be considerably less traffic In the streets, and less general bustle, and especially in the city, and the streets thinned and everything appears much quieter. Here, too, the absence of young men is very noticeable; whilo in'peace times streams of men blocked all the streets about the city, you now find the busy centres really little more crowded than the streets of Wellington. But it is on the roads with so many less taxis and motor buses that the change is most marked.

Another striking thing is the enormous rise in the cost of meals, which cost five or six shillings where half-a-crown would have covered the bill before. In the evenings we spend an hour or two in the West End, and the impression one gets is that life goes on very much as before, here, with a .pretty generous expenditure of money in the purchase of pleasure. All the big restaurants appear to be just as well patronised and all the theatres are going aB usual. Of course, London is full of khaki, who, I should say, spend about 00 per "ont. of the money here, so no one can object to all this apparent luxury, if it is made bv the soldiers.

Here in Edinburgh the changes are very much mora marked, and Scotland appears to have taken more stringent measures to curb any desire to waste. In England the new liquor restrictions give less opportunity than before, but they are much stricter here, where ,on week days the hotels are only open from 4 p in. to 1(1 p.m,, while they are closed all day on Sundays. Even guests in hotels cannot obtain liquor except during the open hours of 4 to 10. The system of regulating th& amount of food one can purchase is in strict operation here, though I did not see it in London. A hotel menu is set out in this way:— .Soup—Half course. 'Fish—One course. Meats—One. course. ■

Sweets—One course. And so on, each separate dish being' marked as one course, and no one is j allowed more than two courses. You [ could not, therefore, have fish and meat • and sweets; one of them would have to be dropped. And if you have soup you have broken into one course, so you could only have one other dish. And at this hotel the cheapest meal costs 3/-, so j you can tell one is living under hard and fast regidations. Of course, the man i with an appetite requiring generous treatment could lunch at two separate restaurants, but that would simply too i making living a much dearer proposition than it really is. | The theatres here are also taxed, and where you previously paid 1/ for the pictures you now pay 1/2. It is really ' a case of the nation being on rations, and as one of the newspapers expressed it, if it is good enough for Tommy, who is doing the big job, to be placed on rations, it is good enough for the eivil-j ian at home. Both here and in London girls are to be seen at work in all of new walks in life—on the railways, as taxi-drivers, motor-bus conductors, in ali capacities in hotels, etc.