CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17633, 9 December 1922, Page 14

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

MR GEO. GOULD'S IMPRESSIONS. Mr Geo. Gould, of Christchurch, returned during the week after a seven months' trip to the Old Country, anil in the course of a chat with a "Press" representative he gave an interesting survey of commercial, farming, and social conditions generally as he saw them in England. Mr Gould remarked that to find oneself back in London after ten years' absonce, and remembering all that had happened in the interval; to find it richer, busier and more crowded than ever was a pleasant experience. Wealth had, of course, changed hands, and many peoplo with fixed incomes were hard hit by taxation, but England still abounds in wealthy and prosperous people, and the spending power of tho nation was obviously very great. Mr Gould considered that the country is well around the corner, and, given peace, is likely to regain her pro-war position sooner, perhaps, than any other nation. Though trade is still dull in some branches, in others it is very good indeed, and few people carry all their eggs in one basket. *. The class worst hit by the war seemed to be the big land owners, who derived their iiicomes fi-oni rentals. Rural property is almost valueless now as an investment, except to the owner who uses it himself. To read the papers one might imagine that the whole farming community was on the verge of bankruptcy, but if one moved about amongst the farmers it was apparent that many of them were well off, and led exceedingly-pleasant and comfortable lives, esoecially those who devoted themselves to breeding first-class live stock. Cropping, of course, was a very precarious business owing to. the vagaries of tho climate, but it was difficult to see how.the live stock side could fail to pay at the current prices. A few days before he left England Mr Gould attended a fat stock sale at Newmarket, when Southdown wether lambs, that would kill about 481b, made £5 7s 6d, and Suffolk lambs, or tegs, from £6 Os to £8 per head, this price being over 2s per lb. He saw 4000 Suffolk flock ewes sold at an average of £9 10s apiece, scarcely any bringing less than" £7, and choice lines made from £l2 to £2O each. "As- one travels about England," said Mr Gould, "the tremendous number of new houses in every town and village is very noticeable. These were built under the Government assistance scheme, which proved such a. financial morass, and had to be abandoned. Profiteering by builders and loafing by workers maintained coste at an absolutely false level, and it is said tihat taxpayers will havo to find £10,000,000 tier annum for 40 years to make good the economio loss. As soon as Government assistance stopped building costs dropped bv 60 peer cent., and what was a £IOOO "house can now be built for £&5 O. "I think the thing which strikes a new arrival most forcibly in London is the enormous motor traffic One had supposed that the Rolls Royce was a luxury reserved for the millionaire —if so, millionaires are plentiful, for Rolls Royces are almost as common as Fords. The duty of 33 per cent, on imported cars has given the English trade a great fillip in the home market, and English cars.seen in the streets must outnumber foreign by five to one. "I sometimes discussed tho question of England giving an Empire preference on produce, such as beef, but one is always met by the unanswerable argument that as 100 per cent, of the electors are food consumers and only about 10 per cent, food producers it is useless to expect any Government to do anything calculated fco raise food prices." Arable farmers in many parts of England suffered through an early dry spring, which checked growth, and the wet season later caused a good deal of damaged crop. The quality of the farming in the south of Scotland struck the visitor very forcibly. It was wonderfully good. "I did not attempt to follow racing," remarked Mr Gould. "I attended a few meetings at the principal centres. The gambling side of racing is far more prominent in England than in New Zealand, and it would be well if som© of our conscientious objectors to the totaliaator could study conditions there, when' they would be bound to admit that the machine ie not by any means essential to the betting fever. I am convinced there is far more betting amongst people who never see a horse race in England than in New Zealand, and tho amount of prominence and encouragement given to betting in the papers almost reconciles one to the exclusion of betting news from our New Zealand papers, wliich, seeing that the totalisator is legalised by the State, I had always regarded as silly humbug.' To a question, Mr Gould said he saw no evidence that England was in any way moribund or the people decadent. Indeed, the English people ltere still, in his opinion, the foremost race on earth, and amongst those in the Old Country are still to be found the finest representatives of the British race. Mr Gould had a word to say about newspaperdom. "I have had a good deal 1 of time and opportunity to read the'newspapers of many countries, ana I would like to say that I consider the people of New Zealand lucky in their newspapers, which enable them to keep abreast of the world's news better than the papers of any other countries I came across. For a general survey of what gees on in the world none is' better . than our own. I was sorry to see that there wra a tendency amongst some of the English newspapers towards sensationalism, on the lines of American productions, which I regard as the height of abomination." "