"MOST COMFORTABLE"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 1, 1 July 1935, Page 14

"MOST COMFORTABLE"

TRAVEL IN NEW ZEALAND

ENGLISHMAN'S IMPRESSIONS

During three visits to New Zealand a very favourable impression of the country was received by Paymaster Rear-Admiral Sir Eldon Manisty, R.N. (retired), who left for England by the liner Akaroa on Friday afternoon, after a hurried visit to Auckland and Eotorua, states the "Auckland Star." "There is no doubt that New Zealand is a most attractive country for English people," he said.

Previously Sir Eldon visited New Zealand 15 years ago. In March he returned to the Dominion, and toured through both islands, seeing Aucklaud, Napier, Wellington, the West Coast of the South Island, Christchurch. and Dunedin. He then crossed to Australia, and recently returned to the Dominion to make a hurried visit to Rotorua.

I "What one notices most after fifteen years is the great improvement which has been made in the roads. Travelling by road is most comfortable now," he said. The hotels in general compared favourably with thcJse of other countries, while from the English point of view the food was good. "New Zealanders are the only people 1 have heard complaining about the hotels in this country. There seems to be too great a tendency to compare country hotels with city hotels."

Sir Eldon said that while a number of New Zealanders appeared to feel that the country was suffering from isolation and a spirit of parochialism, he saw no signs of this. The education system seemed sound, while the newspapers were good, and in particular were full of English news, which -jp* parently was read a great deal in the Dominion. "I should say that most people in New Zealand know more about English affairs than do people in an English country town," he added. "It is probably on account of the long distance you are from other countries that this feeling of isolation. has arisen."

While he would not care to comment on the signs of the depression he had seen in New Zealand, Sir Eldon taid that most of the complaints he had heard were exactly similar to those common in other countries, He could almost imagine at times that he was in England again.