IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13910, 8 December 1910, Page 8

IMPRESSIONS OF TRAVEL.

After an absence of thirty years, Mr A. Henderson, late manager *of tho Christchurch branch of Messrs Bess and Glendining, recently visited the Old Land, and has returned to Christchurch. Mr Henderson was away for nearly twelve months. He happened to arrive at Manchester at the time of tho great cotton strike, when somo 700 mills were closed, and many thousands of hands were thrown idle. ■■ On the Friday, tho papers came out with the announcement that the strike had been settled, and on the Monday, so complete was the agreement arrived at that every man and woman started work again. As regards the famous Manchester canal, hitherto the shareholders had not been drawing dividends on their enormous outlay, but their enterprise was now \ being rewarded, and the investment was beginning to show signs of being a safe one.

"What about the poverty we hear so much about?" Mr Henderson was asked.

In replj*, he said that the last thirty years had seen a great change in tho social conditions of the people of Manchester and London, and indeed all the large cities, and the amount of poverty was not nearly so great as it used to be. The mill employees all seemed to be'well dressed and well fed, and the places of amusement were crowded every evening. Many of the female mill hands were making up to 30s or 35s a week.

"While I was at Home," Mr Henderson continued, "the Suffragette question loomed large on the political horizon, nnd we out in tho Dominion can scarcely realise what a gigantic movement it is. It contains in its ranks many of the nobility of England, some of its advocates being remarkably clever speakers. I heard one lady orator addressing a meeting on the suffragette, question and, strange to say, among the thousand listeners around her I could not discern ono woman.

"And is there anything in the talk about Britain's decadence?" was asked. "That is all a bogey," cam© the emphatic reply. "There is absolutely no indication of any decadence. The masses are socially better off than they have ever been before, and the improvement is being maintained. A quiet confidence prevails as to Britain's supremacy, and never once, I think, did I hear any mention of 'tho German menace' of which we hear so much out here."