THE NEW ENGLISHMAN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16462, 14 June 1919, Page 6

THE NEW ENGLISHMAN.

HOW BRITONS BECAME MORE GENIAL. Tho following appears in tho London Daily Mail, written by Hugh Fraser, late of New Plymouth; I like the man I meet casually in England now much better than the men 1 met over here six years ago. Now the average Englishman docs not strike me as being so cold towards the stranger. Often when here before 1 used to think he was suspicious. If I tried to open conversation or offered him my newspaper in a train or in an hotel ho was invariably polite, but his face seemed to say, “I don’t know you; what right have you to speak to me?” I could never make any headway with him. I was puzzled, because out in tho Dominions it was so different. Staying in hotels or travelling out there people make some of their best friends, though they have never been .introduced to them. What made it more difficult to understand was that I never found the Englishman travelling abroad to show such reserve.—ln hotels in India I have mot Englishmen casually and we have become good friends—m after years these chance friendships have been preserved by correspondence. Once in Sydney I had only been a few hours iii an hotel when some English tourists whom I had neves seen in my life before invited mo to make one of n party to visit the Blue Mountains.. I went, and I was glad, because that was one of the jnlliest little parties I have ever journeyed with. And on hoard ship the ! Englishman readily makes a friendly companion.

But how changed in his own country ! When I crime here six years ago I "was frequently embarrassed and sometimes snubbed.

And now as I travel about England I find him changed. He is the Englishman you meet abroad.

He will cheerily respond to your efforts to make conversation on a railway journey, and over the fire in the hotel smoking-room he is the happiest of >ood fellows. I was dining alone in a restaurant the other evening and the second seat at my table hapnened to bo the only, vacant one in the room. A young man—obviously not long out of kbaki ■—asked if I would mind if he sat there.

We talked. Yes, I had been to France, and we exchanged experiences. To that vacant chair I owe the friendshin of a charming English family. France, Gallipoli, and Salomon go a long way towards providing the secret' of a more genial Englishman. The fine English character has not-suffered, and we who come from abroad like the Englishman better for it.