POOR OLD ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18644, 22 December 1928, Page 4

POOR OLD ENGLAND.

To the Editor. Dear Sir,—Every now and again some fortunate pilgrim makes a trip to Europe, stops at each place he visits just long enough to have a shave, haircut and regulate his watch, then comes back and tells the folks all about it. And nine times out of ten the story is the same. “Conditions in England are disgraceful; country’s rushing headlong to ruin. Unemployed ought to be made to work. People are happier and more prosperous in Gazeekaland (or some other locality that lives on tourists and never honours its liabilities). Can’t understand it! Whole thing’s a disgrace!” Now it seems to me that most of these impressions are formed after short and incoherent conversations with English business men or “professional” men, and since the average Englishman is notorious for his slackness in self-advertisement, they appear to be ultra-pessimistic to the. tourist who passes in a charabanc and a hurry. Conservative to the backbone, they are only just waking tip to the fact that it pays to advertise in business, and have not yet reached the stage that has Jong ago been reached and passed by more enterprising and less scrupulous people. In spite of the impressions formed bv tourists whose interests are centred in matters that are not of any vital importance, and in spite of the fairy tales they spin when all that remains of their trip is a memory, there are several facts that stand out ■frith startling distinctness. Of all the belligerents in the Great War, Great Britain alone is honestlv endeavouring to meet her liabilities without squealing. notwithstanding the fact that untold millions are owing to her with poor prospects of collecting anything.

The collapse of the coal industry, owfing to the use of oil fuel for ships and hydro-electricity for light and heat, has intensified her unemployed problem by throwring miners on the labour market, and the average miner whose father and grandfather were miners knows nothing about other branches of industry, so he drifts into the unskilled casual labour grade. The “dole” also is badly misunderstood. It is merely unemployed insurance, and has been contributed to by the worker (deducted from his wages), his employer and the Government, and can only be drawn for a definite and limited period. Incidentally, after the experiences of the past two winters, a little unemployed insurance wouldn't do us any harm. The old country is all right; she was enduring the agonies of Hell while we in the Southern Hemisphere couldn't realise that a state of war existed; her industries were disorganised whilst alleged neutral countries were making enormous strides and equally enormous profits. Tom Bracken rang the bell when he wrote, Not understood! The secret springs of action That lie beneath the surface and the show Are disregarded. With self-satisfaction We judge our neighbours and they often go Not understood. If tourists who visit England should learn anything at all from their trip it is the importance of being British. Buv British! New Zealand goods first, but British always. It not infrequently happens that most of the captious (and ignorant) critics of Britain and her conditions sell their goods to Britain and buy right outside the Empire altogether. I know that if an alleged Britisher wearing Japanese rags, using a German razor and driving a Yankee car were to run my Homeland down to me I’d feel inclined to put the boot If England was what England seems And not the England of our dreams But only putty, brass and paint, ’Ow quick we’d chuck 'er! But she ain’t. —I am, etc., A MAORILAND COCKNEY.