It is a little ironical that the Government, having' created
an acute shortage of hotel accommodation by requisitioning hotels right and left, should have had to improvise a hotel of its own at short notice for the benefit of national guests for whom no rooms could be found elsewhere, and then been severely criticised by the Opposition, and rather less severely by the Select Committee on Estimates, for running it extravagantly. The extravagance can hardly be contested, but it is not so easily avoided. I once asked a hotel proprietor whether he really needed to advertise so much ; he said yes ; it was necessary to have every bedroom always full. That no doubt is a counsel of perfection, and 2 Park Street has been very far from perfection in that respect. It is often half empty, and in those circumstances overheads are a crushing burden. Also the Government did not run the hotel itself, but paid a catering firm too guineas a week to do that for it ; the fee has since been reduced to 5o guineas. There are two sides to all this. I was once entertained at 2 Park Street by a Dominion Minister who was enthusiastic about the treatment he was getting there. It is a good thing to give' satisfaction to Dominion Ministers and other oversea guests, and worth dropping a few pounds in the process. But it is possible to overdo the dropping, and no doubt the Select Committee is wise in counselling the Government to carry on, but on a less ambitious scale.
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