"TOPSY TURVEY" TRAN SITION

Northern Advocate, 17 December 1919, Page 4

"TOPSY TURVEY" TRAN SITION

HIGH PRICES RULING

TRAVELLER'S EXPERIENCES

Social and residential conditions in the England of the after-war period— and for that matter in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere—are described by Mr N. Alfred Nathan, who returned to Auckland last week from the Old Country and America in terms, far from encouraging to people who contemplate long-distance holiday tours. "'The trip from which I returned," said Mr Nathan, "was my 15th voyage around the world, and by far the most disagreeable in my experience."

Business and social life in England Mr Nathan found to be still in a topsy-turvey state. Tliroughout London and the principal cities of the United Kingdom the traveller finds the utmost difficulty in securing accommodation. All hotels and boardinghouses are crowded from basement to ceiling, and in the best hotels the management make it clearly understood that they have no desire to book anybody for more than a fortnight or three weeks.. Then there are the restrictions of the rationing system, which still operates in regard to many kinds of food. Each traveller is on arrival in any kuge centre to present him-

■.i at the town ihall and secure the ration tickets to which he is entitled, before the hotel management can be provided with his table requisites.

BUSINESS NOT NORMAL,

As to business life, Mr Nathan's experience was that it is still far from heing settled into its normal channels. The price of everything has soared to enormous heights. Many classes of goods, particularly those connected with domestic supplies, are considerably dearer than in New Zealand, and sometimes of very questionable quality. Manufacturers and dealers can give no guarantees as to when orders for merchandise can be fulfilled. This situation is largely created by the slowness of the men demobilised from the army in resuming industrial life. Their unemployed allowances available, make them disinclined to resume their former occupations. Even where they have returned to work their employers state that they have difficulty in keeping them in the factories for more than three days a week. HEAVY SHIPPING LIST. When the time came for returning to New Zealand Mr Nathan found the utmost difficulty in securing a passage even though he has business associations with two large shipping companies. The accommodation on the vessels trading to New Zealand was required for the transport, of returning troops, and the High Commissioner, Sir Thomas Mackenzie, informed Mr Nathan that he had on his books the names of about 3000 New Zealanders, some of whom had been waiting for months. As to the steamers trading across the Atlantic, the full berbhage space was bespoken for weeks ahead. Eventually, Mr Nathan secured with some difficulty a passage to New York in an old and slow vessel, which took 12 days on the voyage, and from San Francisco he was accommodated in the Moana, which arrived in Wellington last week.

New York, Chicago, and San Francisco were found to be suffering under similar commercial and social turmoil to that of Great Britain. Mr Nathan was informed that it will be more than twelve months before the British and American world can be expected to resume its pre-war rout inc. i