IN CHILLY LONDON

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1914, Page 15

IN CHILLY LONDON

THE VISITOR FROM OVERSEAS. Colonials, according to Sir George Reid, High Commissioner for Australia, are having their admiration for v the Motherland dulled by their loneliness when they come to London. "You can't." said Sir George Reid, "make 7,000.000 people think over the arrival of one Australian. I make that allowance. But thero is a film over the British character. When it is scratched as fine a man is struck as can be found anywhere— but it has to be scratched. "When an Englishman visits Australia, he finds himself in the midst of friends anxious to take himjby the hand. I want a little more of that in London, not only for High Commissioners, but for' the ordinary Australian." Amonj, men from the Oversea Dominions who do not entirety agree with Sir .George is Mr. W. L. Griffith, Charge d' Affaires at the Canadian Office in London. Mr. Griffith admits that London is lonely, for the English provincial as well as the Qolonial. "But," he said to the Daily News, "I cannot follow — perhaps 1 do not understand — Sir George Reid when he speaks of a 'iilm' over the English character. "It is perfectly true that an Englishman lisiting one of the Dominions is taken by the hand, but 1 apprehend that when the Australian and Canadian centres approach London in size the same inherent obstacles in the way of good fellowship will present themselves. I don't believe it is from any lack of warm-heartedness that visitors are neglected in London. The difficulty is, how to get into touch with visitors. "As a matter of fact, the appreciation of the people of the Motherland for the people of the Dominions has grown astonishingly during the past twenty years."