BEST COUNTRY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 188, 11 May 1928, Page 9

BEST COUNTRY

FOR CIVILISED PEOPLE TO LIVE IN OPINION OF DEAN INGE AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND THE HEALTHIEST (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) (Rec. May 10, 9 p.m.) London, May 9. Dean Inge, in an article in the “Evening Standard,” discusses which is the best country for civilised people to live in. He says that on the whole Europe is the only part of the world where there are no deserts and is the most favoured continent. It is not an accident that Europeans have taken the lead in civilisation. People in the countries round the North Sea, and their offshoots in America, Australia and elsewhere, own three-quarters of the wealth of the world, eleven-twelfths of the steamships, produce nine-tenths t of the manufactures, and control two-thirds of the earth’s habitable territory.

A rough circle including England, Scotland, France, North Italy, South Norway, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, and Germany comprise the most civilised parts of the Old World, he declares. The healthiest countries are the Scandinavian lands, England, Holland, and the new countries wherein their people are settled. It is a striking fact, however we may try to explain it, that the low death rate extends even to Iceland, which few choose as a health resort.

The Dean says that Australia and New Zealand seem actually to be the healthiest'countries in the world. A good case could be made out for England as the finest country in the world to live in, but on the whole he would give the palm to France, which has a larger area, more varied climate and open side to Mediterranean. He knew of no country to , which Nature had been quite so bountiful. Even' Englishmen must also admit that if civilisation is the art of making most of life, the French have cultivated it more than any other nation in the world.