IN ENGLAND NOW

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 March 1940, Page 24

IN ENGLAND NOW

| New Zealand Doctor’s Comments "¢ ELL, this is Utopia after \ / England," said Dr, Douglas P. Kennedy, of Christchurch, who has just arrived from |London. Dr. Kennedy, a graduate of Otago University, went to London to take a post-graduate course at the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, | but owing to disorganisation caused by the war, he has returned to New Zealand for an indefinite period. "This country," he told The Listener, "has little to learn from England in public health or hospital services except in regard to tuberculosis and maternal and child welfare organisation." He dwelt at some length on infant mortality figures, and declared that the British figures were "absolutely shocking," especially in certain industrial areas such as South Wales. Democracy in the Army With regard to the war, he had "noticed a definite democratic spirit in the army." Officers and "other ranks" ate together in restaurants and fraternised in the same hotels. "Nearly everyone approves of this new spirit," he continued. About the attitude of the people generally to the war and its problems, Dr. Kennedy said he could speak of London only, but there he found, after the first few days excitement was over, an atmosphere of great calm and a determination that democracy and decency should not disappear from Europe. "We thought we were for it properly," he said, referring to the first day of the war when the air-raid sirens sounded a short while after Mr. Chamberlain’s dramatic speech in the House of Commons; " but since then air raid warnings were treated just as more necessary bare sonnel Discontent in South Africa He displayed a Rations Book, very like a few bound sheets of our petrol ‘coupons, but his interest passed quickly to other matters. "No, I'm afraid I don’t like London at all, in peace or war; which reminds me that my English notes were refused in Durban, where I spent some time on my way back." Dr. Kennedy remarked that feeling both for and against General Smuts was running very high in South Africa, while there was deep discontent with all political parties among the natives. " Alien" New Zealanders Asked if he could say what was the attitude of the average Englishman to this country, Dr. Kennedy said that he wasn’t aware until then that they had any. On writing "New Zealand" after his name in the register of the first hotel he went to in England, the girl at the desk asked him should not he register at once. " Register where and what?" he asked, "As an alien," replied the girl, and Dr. Kennedy added, "that’s how I felt in London until I got to know some other New Zealanders." "They like us in England," he concluded, "but I prefer this country, and intend to stay for a while."