Cost Of Living Higher In England Than N.Z.

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 December 1950, Page 9

Cost Of Living Higher In England Than N.Z.

The cost of living in England was infinitely higher than in New Zealand, stated the president of the Wellington branch of the Overseas League (Mi G. G. Watson) who, with Mrs Watson, returned recently after a nine-months’ trip round the world. The wealthy people in England were living on their capital. People with incomes of £20.000 a year had £lOOO to spend after the taxgatherer had his share. In the * stickiest” position of all, however, was the middle-class man on £lOOO to £2OOO a year. Such men had told Mr Watson that because of the enormously high cost of living, they had given up their cars, clubs and telephones, and they never attended a theatre. They had given up the “niceties” of life and the luxuries to educate their children. Austria was the only country in the world where anything was cheap. Hotel accommodation cost from 10s to 12s a day. In Switzerland it cost from £lO to £l2 a day. He considered that there was nothing to equal the beauty of the English eountrvside. The orderliness of restraint of 750,000 people at the English Derby had impressed him. They formed mile-long queues to catch buses and trains to go home. Such was the crowd that cars and buses travelling eight abreast took two hours and ahalf hours to travel the 20 miles to London. Mr Watson their car from England to France. There was no unloading of baggage. He was on French soil.