ENGLAND AT WORK

Southland Times, Issue 17919, 26 April 1917, Page 5

ENGLAND AT WORK

LUXURY AND INDULGENCE CUT OUT. VERY REAL SACRIFICES. A citizen of the dominion, not wishing his identity disclosed, who has just returned from a visit to the Old Country, is very warm in his admiration of the manner in which the people resident ip England are coping with the present great war. The whole-hearted way to which they have stripped themselves for the fray would, he says,, amaze any stay-at-home New Zealander. .AH luxuries have.been foresown by the wealthy people, as a general rule; indeed, for a;person to luxuriate In any way is now.considered ;bad form, which is quite sufficient to bripg many into line without anything further, as.the average Englishman is a stickler .for good ,'form, and never wishes to be counted one of the “outers.” “You may travel all 'London now,” ; 6ays the informant, “and never.see what we used to call a fashionably dressed man. Now and then you mas' drop across a man wearing .the conventional ;top-hat ‘ and frock coat of pre-war times, but he is ; rarity, and has .probably been, attending a levee or some special .function. ■The sac suit is now.the thing —.the.old sac suit for preference. It is not good form to be seen in a new .sac suit- I .took all my old clothes Home with roe, And have not been called on ,to wear any > others. .In fact, I .think I was a little better dressed than roost people .1 met. You may hear some talk of high living, and to new colonial eyes it might seem so to those Vho frequent .the .theatre quarter .jn London, but' the experienced Londoner knows that they are not the - real people. ,To a ,large.exetent they are people, who...owing to the war conditions are earning more money than .they ever have in their lives .before, and are having a good time. Thrift hardly ever enters into the thoughts of such people. They have .got .the money, and have got to .get .rid of it. Mqre .excusable, perhaps, ip ;the large soldier public that .-attend the theatres. They are probably men who have come over for a spell .from .France, and the relaxation they get at t(ie theatres is beneficial, besides, where were 'such men to go, .men who are strangers to .London? No, believe me, the -well-to-do people .are making very real sacrifices. They are curtailing in .every way —in clothes, food, and their recreations, including racing. It gives one quite a shock to coroe out here and find everything going on as Usual: with races practically every day, and men supporting them who ought :to be doing something much more effective for the Empire ;in her present great need. “Another thing I regret to see, and that is that all the Germans here have not been interned. You hear of plots in America, trouble in Mexico, and intrigue in -China, and still think that New Zealand should be immune from and suspicion of German hatched trouble. Don’t you (believe it! Every Ger- f man is a ,-menace to the Umpire at the present time, and should be interned. There are many who think that our Germans are quite all right, .because they have nothing personally against them, .but when -you realise -the fiendish plots they have hatched and carried out ip other countries, it is (simple madness to allow one German Jiis jiberiy until peace is signed. They have been proved to be absolutely without conscience, pity, or charity, and yet there are today Germans by the -dozen tallowed to roam round New Zealand. How do we know the devices they may employ to give the. enemy information? They should be put beyond the risk of such temptation, and I wonder that the •Government does not see to it, before some unlooked-for catastrophe opens their eyes to the danger of free, untrammelled Germans in their midst. “Tt was pretty bad in England, but, I understand, that since Lloyd George became Prime Minister the situation is much better. The whole nation should be grateful for the existence of such a men i don’t suppose there was a man more hated and maligned than Lloyd George before, the war. but his timely action has gone a long way towards saving the nation. To-day he is the man of the hour, and many of those who reviled ‘the pettifogging little lawyer,’ as be was contemptuously called, are now prepared to lick bis boots.” Whan our informant was at Port Raid, on his way to England, he bad the exciting experience of seeing a Turkoformin airship sailing overhead at a considerable height. She dropped three bombs, presumably trying to hit the shipping In the Canal, but they all landed on bare, arid ground, and did no harm whatever. In the meantime the' anti-aircraft guns were doing their best to “pill” the visitor. Leaving Marseilles in company with a couple of transports, they were alarmed one day at toe officer on the bridge announcing the periscope of a submarine some 600 yards away. The coarse of the boat was at once zig-zagged, and the steamer’s syren brought up one of the fast patrol boats (steaming 85 miles, ah hour), winch formed part of the escort, on which demonstration toe submarine dived for safety, and was not seen again. All the passengers had to get their lifebelts on, the order being that on an alarm being given all should repair to their cabins for their belts. Some of them wore the belts toe whole time, and no one thought it peculiar.