PARIS IN GLOOM

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3420, 15 February 1936, Page 3

PARIS IN GLOOM

GAIETY TOO DEAR.

Paris, the gay, the adorable, the chic, is alas, gay no longer (writes a London commentator). For gaiety, you see, is one of those expensive items that must be purchased cheaply, and nobody has any money to spare for it nowadays. What with the high cost of this and that, it is as much as the average citizen can do to find the cash for rent, clothes, and food. And as for tourists, they are almost as rare as icicles in the Sahara. A forbidding rate of exchange

keeps them out. France, in short, clings to her gold standard, and throws prosperity to the winds. All this and more was lamented to me by a charming lady from la belle Paris, whench she had come, so she said, to revel in the "life" of London. " For you are very happy here, n'est-ce-pas? And everything so cheap. Yes, it. must be so," she shrugged, "for you all have money instead of gold. I do not know how, but you have made a success of the depression and have made it a reason for your gaiety and wealth. We have always thought you English people mad, but you are very clever to have

—what you call it—so much method with your madness." Despite the new decrees, everything is dear in Paris, and from every loop, hole in the law there are a hundred profiteers. Food is so costly that the smaller hotels provide chicken five days a week rather than buy meat. By the same token, the "cheap but good" restaurant has vanished into the limbo of treasured memories. Restaurants are no longer cheap, and too many of them are nasty. Where, in the halcyon days, a meal could be had "tout compris" for five francs or less, with the franc at 2d, you now have to pay six or seven francs with the franc

at 3d. Fares are high, even in the buses, and the prices of clothes are a snare and delusion. True, clothes have come down (thanks to Government intervention) as to the number of francs they cost, but since the currency has appreciated, the benefits are more apparent than real, as you will quickly realise after a shopping excursion. Thus it is that Paris is feeling so extremely sorry for itself, and so envious of London, where, with characteristic shrewdness, the citizens prefer a few notes' in the hand to a mass of gold in cold storage.