A LITERARY TOUR

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3760, 25 May 1936, Page 6

A LITERARY TOUR

Grades of Travel.

Encouraging the notable improvement observed in American speech, in these days of radio broadcasting, the education scheme for 1936 has many interesting facets. There will be a “floating university,” a “travelling school of speech,” the annual visit to Stratford-on-Avon of the Drama League, a “literary tour” of England, and an “ambulating” art course that will take Teachers’ College students through the art centres of the Old World. The list grows more varied in curricula and voluminous in enrolment. All the United States railways are offering reduced fares to ports of embarkation to widen the appeal of ocean travel. Atlantic travel, broadly speaking, falls into three grades. At their head, in size and speed, are the express liners Queen Mary and Normandie; a few hours slower are the Berengaria and the Acquitania, the Italian Rex and Conte di Savoia, the French He de France’ and Paris, the German Bremen and Eropa, and the Canadian Empress of Britain. The new “cabin” class replaces the old “first class” this year, under an agreement of the I Atlantic Shipping Conference. The “cabin” class includes “de luxe” suites and the most expensive mode of ocean tavel. The finest suite on the Queen Mary costs £220, if occupied by two persons, or double that amount if occupied by six passengers. These fares are for one-way passage during summer. Minimum basic fares for the best class of travel on the largest liners start at £54 for the Queen Mary and Normandie, and scale down to £3B for the older and less speedy ships of the “express” classification.

In the second grade are fast and palatial liners, which have not the extreme speed of the first. Their ‘cabin” tickets range from £35 to £32, with tourist and third-class passage proportionately lower. In the third classification are the one-class ships, ranging from express cargo liners, with staterooms, dining rooms, and recreation deck spaces, down to the tramps, which carry a few “paying guests.” Berths in this last-named class for the coming summer were sold out last December —an indication that the season will see something approaching a boom in Atlantic travel