HIGH CHARGES.

Auckland Star, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 9

HIGH CHARGES.

SEEING TESTS IN ENGLAND. VISITORS VICTIMISED. Visitors from Australia who have travelled 13,000 miles to see the Tests in England, declare that they are being victimised by the hotels. One Sydney business man who has journeyed specially to London for the cricket with his wife and two sons finds, the charges excessive. "For five years I have saved to see the Tests and show my boys the beauties of England," he told a representative of the "Daily Herald." "I now find I shall be £100 on the wrong side if I take the family to the three matches in your province because of the high costs of the Irotels. Wo shall therefore see more of the country and miss those Tests," he said. Protests have led to little alteration in the. position. "Matter of Degree." Sir Francis Towle, hotel manager, suggested it was "all a matter of degree." "Many provincial hotels are comparatively ' empty for two and a half days a week," he said. "They have an opportunity of making up a little and, well, I do not think that, in the circumstances, the rates are too unreasonable. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast rule. I suppose many hotel managers work on the .system of making hay while the sun shines . . . but I certainly hold no brief for profiteering." Mr. H. E. Evans, general (secretary of the British Federation .of.. Hotel and Apartment Keepers' Association, considered that the demands were "most decidedly out of the ordinary." Is it profiteering for liotelkeepers to have charged £5' for a night's sleep on a billiards table during the Grand National meeting at Liverpool? Or to demand 30/ for a room, without breakfast, in Bournemouth for the five days of the British Medical Association conference ? Or ask IS/ for an 8/6 bed-and-break-fasfc when the first Test match wae played at Nottingham? Or £1 a night in a private house when the tennis championships . are. being decided at Wimbledon? Those are questions that are being asked by others who have suffered.