CO.NSERVATION AS ADVERTISEMENT.
In general, much the best advertisement of England and of Britain is England and Britain itself. Its old-world charm is the savour our visitors desire above all else ; and advertise- ment must begin with conservation. Competing petrol pumps and tea-shacks and bungalows are doing untold harm to the mere cash value of our fairest counties. At the same time, some of the least spoilt places suffer from mere neglect. Avebury is one. Here we have the first capital of England, a place to which London is a parvenu. It speaks of an antiquity eneval with an early Egyptian dynasty. Its appearance is eloquent of "the drums and tmniplings of a thousand conquests " ; and round about it stretch wide views, and snug villages hide such as you could not parallel the world over. How many visitors, how many of the English themselves, know which is the oldest place in England ? Not even the older Cathedrals are sufficiently bruited in regard to their special virtues. St. David's, in Pembrokeshire (really founded by St. David ia the seventh century) is one. Concealed in its close hollow that gorgeous building and the ruins of the Bishop's Palace deserve a pilgrimage from all and sundry, but most from the descendants of the many Cymri who migrated overseas. How many pilgrims, especially to Wales, are balked by the doubt about hotels ?
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