A GERMAN’S VIEW OF THE ENGLISH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 74, 21 December 1937, Page 15

A GERMAN’S VIEW OF THE ENGLISH

Comparisons With Own Country

England at its best?—the spacious country life of well-to-do Englishmen. England at its worst?—• the depressed areas, and the dingy, crowded “pubs” of the large industrial cities. Such is the verdict of Herr Kurt vou Stutterheim, London correspondent of the “Berliner Tageblatt,” in a book, “Those English 1”

He lias been reporting English affairs since 1923, and is married to an English woman. He thinks the English, for the most part, a polite and kindly people. “London," he observes, “is incomparably more polite as a city than Paris. Its courtesy is far more sincere than that of Rome, and much more natural than the somewhat regimented polittness of Berlin.”

The author does not think very highly of English housewives. He refers to the “tragi-comic experiment in housekeeping” that follows a girl’s marriage, and remarks that an English husband would put up with things which would lead to a family quarrel in Germany.

He is surprised by the unmarried English girl’s freedom. “Flirtation,” he says, “Is a recognised institution in English life.” Marriage is made comparatively easy for the English girl because “the Englishman has a rooted objection to marrying for money. Girls who are rolling in wealth may remain unmarried, while the poorest may contract a brilliant alliance.

“In so far as material questions are concerned, the Englishwoman is more calculating than the Englishman. Not heiresses, but ‘eligible bachelors’ are the golden calves worshipped in the market-place.”

Herr voh Stutterheim admires the achievement of the British Empire. "England’s ambition,” he points out, ‘‘is not to be lord over life and death in the Empire, but to be its clearinghouse. It is a magnificent eonceptiou and unique in the history of the world.”