NO PLACE TO LIVE IN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 221, 17 September 1919, Page 7

NO PLACE TO LIVE IN.

SOME IDEAS Or ENGLAND. SOUTH AFRICA THE LAND OF ." OPPORTUNITY. After four and a-half years of absence, almost all of them spent on active Imperial service. Dr. Arthur Marsae, of Remuera, returned this morning by tie Huddart Parker steamer Westralia, ajid intends to establish another practice hero almost immediately. The doctor brings back with him his wife and three children. Ha seeking for service in the early days, of the war took him far afield, for the authorities here turned his offer down for reasons best known to themselves. He went on to Sydney, ■but there he was unsuccessful also, and a. further journey landed him in Capitown. He offered his services under Smuts, and was promised a '"possie" in a fortnight. The fourteen days ran into five weeks, and then tired of waiting he went on to England. Application at the War Office brought immediate eatij>faction, and he was gazetted back to hi? old rank of captain, afterwards becoming major. During his service as a surgeon in khaki, Dr. Marsae was never in want of work, and was for three years and ahalf O.C. Imperial Military Hospital at Preston Hall, Aylesiord. When the hospitals were being cleared and closed he sought his demobilisation orders, but the authorities were evidently so satisfied with -hie efforts that he had quite a maze of difficulty in Retting away. In fact on the very day he left England by troopship for Australia he was detailed for a now job. SYDNEY SUGAR SHORTAGE. The doctor does not seem to be particularly taken with the advantages of England, Ireland, and Scotland as places to live in. The cost of thinga :s so frightfully extravagant, he exclaims. In Australia butter and meat and food generally is priced at a quarter rates ruling in England, yet the folk there are dissatisfied with the cost of living. The doctor considers the sugar shortage. in Sydney to be not nearly so serious as people are led to believe. There is a ration system of a kind where sellers will only attend to the needs of regular customers, and then supply only a limited quantity of the sweet chrysteK but in restaurants and othe,r places where they eat there appeared to be no great shortage, and the diners could have all they wanted. It wae generally considered that the sugar shortage would be a thing of the past in a fortnight or so. ■•' ■* THE COLONIAL PARADISE. Susar was the only foodstuff he had found rationed in Sydney, but in England he characterised the rationing as awful. In the doctor's own word 3 "England is now no white man's country. Living is far better in the colonies, and opportunities for young men are far greater." Speaking of opportunities, the doctor thinks South Africa is the nearest modern approach to (Paradise for the young man. Vast resources of. the country have riot yet been touched, and although the tremendously wealthy jewel kings of Johannesburg and elsewhere might make things a little difScult for an aspiring youth, yet the chances of making more than a living there are splendid, and tetter even than in the Never Never and in New Zealand.