OVERCROWDED SYDNEY.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 12 April 1920, Page 6

OVERCROWDED SYDNEY.

THOUSANDS OF HOLIDAY-

MAKERS

SYDNEY,. March 30

Extraordinary conditions exist m Sydney to-day. Thousands of people who liave come crowding into the city for (the Show and the Easter holidays are wandering about looking vainly for accommodation. Most, of them have some ?ort of place to lay their heads—but it is not at all the place they desire and are prepared to pay for. Inquiries received from all parts of the Commonwealth, and even by wireless from ships approaching Australia, indicate that thousands more ar© on (their way, hoping to spend a pleasant holiday here.

As a matter of fact, for a year past it has been difficult to get good accommodation in Sydney without notke. Any day, casual travellers may bo seen flitting desperately ro\md in cabs from place ta place, trying to engage a. room; and they ara. 'generally forced to go to some good Hotel in tho more distant suburbs, or else take the very veal' and everpresent risk of bugjs in/one of the cheaper hotels in the city. Bugs. a,re now the curse of the lodging-house .districts close in about the city, and most travellers who have been forced by lack of accommodation to> take "pot luck" Kom-iwliGi1" can recount &ome lively experiences. But to-day tho suburbs, as well as the city, are fall up, and very many persons are turning their faces towards tho nearby towns, and coming in daily by train. It is not exactly the holiday in tho city so dear to the heart of the country dweller at this time, bulb it is better than returning home disconsolate. Many, however, having had disheartening experiences in hunting for i oomr. ; and then with the tireless bug, have gone home again. Tho cause of the hotel shortage lies in an incredibly short-sighted policy which governs the issue of hotel licenses. The city has doubled in size in the last couple of decades, but the authorities will not grant more hotel licenses, and high-class residential hotels, as proved over and over again, are a risky proposition without liquor licenses. Therefore, there' is a shortage of hotels. The same authorities permit the continued! existence of scares and scores of dens which are not hotels at all, but merely drinking shops, where no kind of decent accommodation is provided. The position is now becoming so acute that action of some sort will be forced upon the city authorities.