A TOUR ABROAD

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 10, 9 December 1926, Page 2

A TOUR ABROAD

MR G. H. BENNETT’S IM-

PRESSIONS

HOW ENGLAND AIET THE STRIKE

NEW ZEALANDERS RESPECTED IN BRITAIN.

Two of the outstanding impressions of Great Britain’ retained by Mr G. H. Bennett, who returned last evening from a tour abroad, are of the determined, quietly confident manner in which the people at Home dealt with the strike position, and the extraordinarily high esteem in which they hold New Zealanders. / During ten months’ absence from the Dominion Air Bennett, with his wife and two daughters, visited practically every centre of interest in Great Britain and on the Continent, the most comprehensive tour being made all the more enjoyable by delightful weather conditions.

Interviewed this afternoon by a “Standard” reporter. Air Bennett recounted some of the impressions gained on the other side of the equator. Briefly scanning the itinerary, ho mentioned that Mr F. J. Nathan, Alayor of Palmerston North, was a fellow-pas-senger on the ’ voyage to Australia. Travelling via the Cape by a ship which made more ■ than the usual number of port calls, Air Bennett and family saw several of the Australian coastal cities, Durban and Capetown in South Africa, Teneriffe, and arrived at London on April 18. Many weeks were occupied in motor tours of England, Scotland and Wales, after which they “wandered” through the Continent, visiting the battlefields of France, then Paris, Switzerland and Italy before embarking on the return voyage to New Zealand by the Oronsay from Naples on October 24.

BEAUTY OF RURAL ENGLAND

“Rural England is incomparable in its beauty,” enthusiastically declared Mr Bennett when speaking of what he saw there. The beauty of the English countryside appealed to him in wonderful manner—the old rustic houses, tho winding roads, the forests and fields carpeted with a riot of wildflowers made for a picturesqueness and quiet beauty as was' to be found nowhere else. Some three and a-half months were spent motoring through Britain, from Penzance in the south to Inverness in the north, the Scottish lochs, Snowdon and the Thames Valley being included in the places visited. To a New Zealander, Air Bennett stated, it was, perhaps, the wild-flowex-s of the countryside which most chai'med the eye. “1 saw woods literally carpeted with bluebells—it almost appeared as if the sky had fallen there,” he stated. “Again, at Canterbury, we saw a hill absolutely red with poppies. It was a splendid sight. The Devonshire roads are bordered with rhododendrons and they are truly beautiful when in flower in June.”

BATTLEFIELDS OF FRANCE,

Crossing to France the party went to Amiens to view the scarred battlefields of the Somme at Thiepval and Hamel. “They have been left just as they were when tho war ended,” stated Air Bennett. “In fact,” he added, “they are so impregnated with live shells and unrecovered bodies that they have mostly been consecrated as cemeteries. It is a sad spectacle. All the wreckage of war is there—the abandoned wrecks of aeioplanes, machine guns, dugouts, rifles. “The reconstruction of the ruined French villages is proceeding apace. One town, Albert, which we saw, had been entirely rebuilt with structures much supei'ior to the ancient ones which became tho toll of war.” Farm houses, too, were being rebuilt, but, he added with a smile, while the new buildings were much superior to the old the French persisted in the antiquated method of placing barns and cow byros close up to the dwellings.

THE SWISS AND THEIR BEAUTI-

FUL COUNTRY

Paris was visited before they passed on to Geneva in Switzerland, which Mr Bennett described as a truly wonderful little counti’y, in size about equal to the Wellington province, yet containing 6,000,000 people and able, during the Great War, to maintain 400,000 men under arms to guard its mountain passes and preserve the integrity which has been Switzei'land’s for so many years. Intei'laken, Lucenie (the most beautiful place seen on the whole tour), the St. Gothard tunnel, and Lugano in Italian Switzerland were called at.

A country of surpassing beauty, he left Switzerland pi'ofoundly impressed with the universally high standard’of education of the inhabitants, and of their engineering abilities, especially in respect to mountain railways. Incidentally, Mr Bennett mentioned that, whereas we in New Zealand deem the one in fifteen grade of the ltimutaka line a steep haul, in this little country in the heart of Europe they have trains ascending a grade of one in twol Como, Alilan, Venice, Rome and Naples were visited in Italy.

ENGLAND AFTER 15 YEARS. Turning to more general impressions of his tour, Mr Bennett stated that, seeing England after a lapse of 15 years, it appeared not to have the same evidence of poverty now as then and there was less drunkenness. Poverty there was certainly, but not as much as he had seen when last Home, despite all that was said about industrial condtions. The high cost of liquor probably in part at least accounted for less drunkenness. Less penury and less drunkenness were two features of a noticeable general improvement. As for the unemployment “dole,” while it might be demoralising, it doubtless saved a great many from poverty. “It is commonly said that -ve in New Zealand are more English than the English, and the people at Home admit it,” observed Mr Bennett. “We have a name and are respected there in a degree as profound as it is gratifying,” he added, proceeding to cite instances of the cordial welcome extended to visitors from the Dominion. Our reputation in England he believed to have been won by the splendid behaviour. of our troops in the time of the Great War. Hospitable, open hearted and generous were adjectives which he applied to the English at Home.

THE STRIKE. “We were at Home at the time of the general strike in May, and would not have missed it for anything,” he continued. “It showed us how wonderfully calm and collected are the British people under trying conditions, and how easy it is for a strong, responsible government to control a difficult crisis.” There was a great fear on the eve of the strike that Bolshevism had insidiously penetrated the military and naval services, but after Mr Baldwin’s magnificent speech in the Commons London’s fear vanished completely. On a Tuesday morning all transport services were at a standstill in consequence of a general strike —only the taxis remained in commission and the

traffic congestion was the sight of a lifetime. ' “Everything on wheels, from noblemen’s motor cars to costers’ carts, was pressed into willing service to maintain food supply services and transport suburban and country dwellers to the city in the course of their "normal avocations. All roads to Xondon were a mass of slow moving traffic. Later still the taxis went on strike but buses were manned by the relief organisation. “Still London laughed,” Bennett told his interviewer, and recounted incidents apropos of the good humoured stoicism of the Londoner in such a plight. When the dockers practically closed the docks the position appeared a little ugly but one morning the obstructionists went to the waterside to find a regiment of Grenadier Guards in charge wearing steel helmets and armea with rifles and ball cartridges. There was n,o more trouble in that quarter. Walking down Oxford street one day he heard a great volume of cheering and found the reason in an armoured car heading a fleet of army service motor lorries a mile-long carrying foodstuffs to the Hyde Park depot. “Tommy” drivers in service uniform, wearing steel helmets, with rifles across their knees and a cigarette in their mouths, grinned at the crowd and were cheered to the echo. If any doubts remained as to whether the Government could deal with the situation they must have vanished then. Mr Bennett had a mission at Home, being appointed the special representative of the booksellers of Australia and New Zealand to endeavour to arrange for standardisation in the sale of books in these countries such as obtained in Great Britain and Ireland. In this connection he interviewed a great number of publishers in different parts of the Homeland.