FOURTEEN MONTHS ABROAD

Otago Witness, Issue 3994, 30 September 1930, Page 19

FOURTEEN MONTHS ABROAD

SCHOOL INSPECTOR’S IMPRESSIONS. UNEMPLOY’MENT IN BRITAIN. M ELLINGTON, September 27. Mr D. A. Strachan, formerly in Wellington as senior school inspector, gave a few odd impressions of his 14 months abroad to a reporter to-day. Mr and Mrs Strachan returned to Wellington yesterday by the Maunganui from Sydney. They travelled Home by Suez and saw England in both the leafless winter and the leafy spring and summer. As all travellers do, they welcomed the succession of flowers which follow the dull, lOao’y London winter, and they were much impressed by the way every inch of country ground was made use of in farming. They found even better farms, if possible, in Scotland, and in August, when they were there, some of the farm houses were surrounded by as many as 50 or 60 stacks of wheat and oats. “In two countries that we visited begging was made an art,” said Mr Strachan, when asked about unemployment and the dole in England. “In Ceylon the beggar follows an honourable profession, and the priests give him precedent for living a life of mendicancy. In London at the present time begging in various forms is prevalent. You have the one who comes and crudely asks, for money, and then you have the match seller who would be surprised if, when you tendered your penny or other coin, you took the box of matches which you are supposed to be buying. You have the street musician who may or may not earn by the quality of his work the pennies thrown to him. The pavement artists represent another class of what may be called mendicants, aud a great many people seem to earn a living by offering squeaking or acrobatic toys, not so much for the purpose of sale as for the purpose of advertising their poverty. The dole seems to have had a very bad effect. We heard of a case where a girl who worked for two weeks at potato picking said that she was not going to break her back any longer, as a number of others in the neighbourhood had earned sixpence less by living on the dole. On the other hand, in Naples, which has an historical record for mendicancy, >ve found no beggars. Signor Mussolini has made begging a crime, and all the people are at work. We have come from Italy with a vastly enhanced opinion of the average Italian farmer. The whole land is covered with vineyards or agricultural products.” They did not wish to put this matter of begging forth in a spirit of pessimism regarding England, said Mr Strachan, but it was noticeable as one phenomenon of the times. The erection of large blocks of flats and office buildings was noted on the Continent, and Mr Strachan remarked that in such countries as Germany and Belgium the new architecture had frequently a very jazzy effect. In Hamburg one building contained 1500 offices. They had seen enormous blocks of flats going up in the iburbs of Berlin, Hamburg, Rome, Genoa, and Brussels, and increasing numbers of the people seemed to have a kind of communal kitchen and lived in flats.

“In connection with schools, the only part concerning which I made detailed inquiries was what was being done with the 11-plus child,” said Mr Strachan, “ and it appears that the movement is in the same direction as Jias been adopted in New Zealand since the introduction of the junior high school idea. Taking the children age for age, it seems to me that the New Zealand child is as well advanced as those in the British Isles.”