RETURN FROM ABROAD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18580, 14 December 1934, Page 14

RETURN FROM ABROAD

PALMERSTON N. DOCTOR VISIT TO EUROPE CHANGES SINCE WAR A ume months’ tnp abroad to study new methods in surgery and for a holiday has been completed by Ur. Ivan *S. vvnson, of i/iuinerston .North. tie was accompanied uy Mrs. Wilson, and they arrived at \vedmgton m the Monowai. Dr. Wilson, xu an interview, said he did hospital work in various London hospitals for. three months. Afterward they toured through the United Kingdom by motor, visited the Hebrides and later France and Belgium. He was much impressed by the spirit of quiet optimism which 'prevailed in Great Britain, particularly in Southern England, where there was little evidence of depression. On the other hand, parts of the Midlands and Northern Britain still revealed difficult times where the heavy industries were placed. An enormous activity in house building was to be seen everywhere. Many huge ilats were rising, as well as individual houses.

Another thing of which he could not fail to take notice was that the poor he had met in the hospitals appeared to be much- better clothed and nourished than when, he had seen them a few years ago. It appeared that in recent years there had been a general levelling up in the distribution of wealth.

In the Orkneys Dr. and Mrs. Wilson were unable to obtain hotel accommodation, so stayed with a crofter’s family for two days. There they saw primitive but very happy folk living 1 their simple lives. The lesson they taught was that the present complicated civilisation was not essential to complete happiness. “EXCEPT THE MILLION DEAD.” Over in France and Belgium Dr. Wilson revisited the one-time battlefields. He was astonished to find that little trace of the Great War remained. Y7ilnges had been reconstructed, pastures had taken the place of scarred battle grounds, and woods such as Hardeoui't and Trons on the Somme which had been shattered by the guns were fast growing again. These were perhaps 15ft. high with new foliage, and only here and there could there be observed broken and torn stumps so familiar to thousands of New Zealand soldiers. ‘All that does not appear to have been if stored,” said Dr. Wilson, “is the Empire’s million war dead.” France was troubled with the unemployment problem, which had come upon her later than it had upoE most otner countries. A million people were out of work, and there was an agitation for l>e expatriation ,of a similar number of foreign-born workers of many nations ho had found employment in the immediate post-war years when labor was srarce.