WONDERFUL LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

WONDERFUL LONDON

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

(Part I.—By

T.C.L.)

The visitor to London does not see among the public any evidence of a lack of money or of spending power. It is impossible to secure seats at any wood theatre where there is anything but a thoroughly dull play unless you book well ahead. Every session of the picture houses is well patronised, the programmes usually being decidedly inferior to the average programme of a New Zealand picture theatre, though the prices are twice or thrice as high. AH the fashionable and expensive hotels are full, and it is not easy at times to book in. Flats in Mayfair and other fashionable quarters command extravagant rentals. The elaborate and expensive restaurants do a roaring trade, whilst the bars of the hotels are full of customers of both sexes. The public patronage at Ascot and other races shows no sign of diminishing, and crowds still throng Wimbledon, Hendon, Olympia and other places. The large departmental stores and high class millinery, jewellery and furniture ehops are crowded with customers. Nearly all the people in the streets are well dressed, and few beggars, outside the regular pavement artists and blind supplicants, are to be seen. In no city jn the world are there so many expensive and luxurious cars running in the streets, and at week-ends and holidays all the roads leading from the metropolis are crowded with pleasureseekimr motorists. It is only 'when the visitor digs beneath the surface of things and makes careful enquiries that he finds there is another side to the picture: that many of the old established businesses are bavin o- an extremely difficult time or are in the hands of liquidators;, that those in the financial part of the city are having a very lean time; that all with means are being taxed up to the hilt; that many who have enjoyed lucrative positions for years are in weekly dread of receiving notice of dismissal; that others of the middle class in intermittent work are finding the struggle to live very burdensome; and generally the visitor finds by further experience that London is not England. Statistics of unemployment, however, do prove that London, and the south of England generally, are much better off than the rest of the Kingdom, a fact which can readily be understood when it is remembered that London is the greatest shipping and business centre in the world, attracting from every part customers who in the aggregate must represent a temporary 'addition t the population of several hundreds of thousands yearly. New Zealand is the furthest point from this world’s centre, yet it is estimated that it has been sending to London for several years past no fewer than 6000 people annually. Estimating their expenditure at the low figure, of £3OO each, it will be seen that New Zealand visitors.alone spend nearly two million sterling annually in London. From the east, from the. west, from the south, from the five continents of the world the visitors come to pay tribute to London. There is another factor making for London’s prosperity, or, rather, making her less poor than the rest of the Kingdom. In the past most of the important industries have been located in the Midlands, in the North or in the South of- Scotland. The textiles in Yorkshire, the cotton goods in Lancashire, the iron and the steel near the coal mines or the iron ore deposits., But a change has come-about in recent years. Many of the industries 'have - gone southward to London. Innumerable new industries have been started, and found sites in the London suburbs. From Marble Arch, Edgeware Road runs almost due north from London. A few years ago there were wide open spaces along it for a few miles out which to-day - are covered with factories and manufactories. One reason actuating manufacturers in choosing the suburbs of London for factory sites is their centrality. Nowadays manufacturers desire to be in close touch with what is going on, and don’t want to waste time in running up to London from the Midlands or any other part (it is always “up” to London, even in Scotland; it is never “down”). But the chief reason is the desire to get away from the trade union officials and their trammels upon industry, which have been the curse of industry in the Midlands and the North for many decades past. Speaking generally, there is still a good deal, of animosity and distrust harboured by unionists towards employers, whom they regard as their natural enemies, and who, in turn, have little personal interest in the welfare of their workmen. There are exceptions, of course; in some industries the relations between Capital.and Labour 'being all that can be desired, with mutually beneficial results. These large additions to the industries of. the Metropolis have provided further employment, and to 'house the employees streets upon streets of new houses have been erected and are in course of erection. The extent of the building is one of the things that impresses the visitor who has been .away from London for a few years. It is not confined to one subui<b‘: everywhere it is the same. It is amazing, and one wonders where all the people come from and where they find employment. For the most part the .houses are semi-detached, two being.built together, containing from five to six rooms, with all conveniences, and selling for from £6OO to £9OO each. The London County Council is responsible for a great many of the new houses, but speculators and builders are also very busy, and sell on easy terms, with a deposit ranging from £2O to £5O. The structures are of brick and appear to be substantially -built, but there are those who say that a large proportion 'are “jerry” built and consequently will not last many years without extensive repairs. Tim County Council has been doing very useful' work in demolishing slums, widening streets' in these quarters, and re-erecting tenements on up-to-date lines, also in getting the population from the congested areas to move out into the new suburbs. Financially the enterprise has not been justified, but in every other respect it has been an undoubted success. It is not surprising therefore that the'slums in the East End are not the pestilential places they once were. Even in Limehouse Street and “Chinatown’ conditions are such to-day that a stranger could pass through by day or night without being subject to molestation any more than in other parts of the metropolis. The authorities, of course, are more vigilant and discriminating than they were. The East End used to be the sanctuary of the scum of (Europe and Asia. England was the to the oppressed and rejected of the nations. But -she has learned more sense “land of the free,” offering an asylum

since thosp “good old days,” and now insists on a standard of > character and ■ health from migrants, and does not hesitate to deport such of those who have got into the country by irregular or devious means that do not abide by . the laws '.of the country. The East End teems with children, the average family being about ten in number. Most of them play in the streets, which, in such a climate and with so much smoke and impurities in the atmosphere are none too clean; The wage earners are mostly dock workers, who are <in intermittent employment, and find themselves often on the dole. Indeed, most of them do better on the dole than from work, and the time is not far distant when, if the dole system persists, they will lose any inclination or capacity for work. That i» one of the drawbacks of a system which was devised in all good faith to tide the unemployed over a period of difficulty, but which in actual practice in undermining the will to work and teriorating the character of a large seo 1 tion of the workers. j (To be continued.} fl