ON THE CONTINENT.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15119, 4 January 1922, Page 6

ON THE CONTINENT.

ENGLISHMEN STRANDED.

SOME SAD CASES.

(By H. J. Greenwall.)

“Starving Englishman wants work immediately. —Apply, etc.” “Englishman, desperate, wants job of any kind. —Apply, etc.”

These two advertisements appeared on the same day in the situations wanted column of a newspaper printed here in English. This morning, in the same newspaper, there are nine ex-service men asking for work. Two of them are ex-lieutenants, three of the nine have clerical experience, and the other trades and professions represented are building, engineering, carpentry, and commercial travelling. During the past week live Englishmen have called at the Paris office and begged me to find work for them. My friends have had similar experiences. Obviously there is something wrong. What is it?

I have had letters from friends living in the South of France, who tell me that the Riviera is sprinkled Avith stranded Englishmen, mostly of the ex-officer type, who beg for their fares back to England, .but who can never raise more than sufficient for the day, their meals and a roof over their heads.

All are not so lucky as to find the wherewithal. A former captain in the Indian, Army was turned out of the hotel where he had been living here because he owed 1400 francs. For four days he had not fasted food. He had been secretary to an American who disappeared and left him stranded. A .tragic stoiy, but, unfortunately, not the only one. 'My American* colleagues tell me similar stories of their countrymen. There are long processions in and out of their offices, Americans asking for work or enough for a bite of food. What "is wrong? . We see the most pitiful sights. Englishmen and Americans, who but a few, months ago were having a good time and “buying the town,” as the Americans say, now hang about t where Anglo-Saxons congregate and cadge. One American bar has a glass ease in which the proprietor keeps the “stumer” cheques which have been passed on him by English and American customers, and every week the case grows fuller and fuller. Apart from the wasters, the remittance men, and the “crooks/’ there are many, to use an Americanism, “up^against it.” Perhaps there are many who have reached this stage by their qwn faults, but there are just as many—-and I should think more — who have done nothing to desirve this plight; They are the victims of circumstances. Hundreds of English and Americans returned to France as soon as they were demobbed, but they found the country in a different condition from what it was during the war. Then, as the “deliverers of France,” they were feted everywhere. .To-day business is bad. One cf the largest dry goods stores in Paris dismissed 130 of its staff last week. Men who spoke a little French thought ; it would be easy to get a job in France; some of them found work, but their knowledge of the language was not suffi-

eient to enable them to keep their jobs.

. Others came here with a little money, but found it vanished before work was in sight. In fact, there is little work 'here for either Englishmen or Americans. Those who tried to settle down here soon discovered that the cost of living is high, and has fallen very little. A man who does not know Paris well is handicapped when faced with a salary of, say, 800 francs a month. Thousands of French people live on this sum, and even ; less, but they know how to set about it. They know how and where to find accommodation and food '~at reasonable prices, but the Englishman, with a knowledge of Paris picked up when on leave, does not know. ' * ■