1 MARCH 1930, Page 17

* * The difference of latitude of course falsifies any

argument drawn from one country to the other. Though you have no money and scarcely a house, can you be said to be poor if you may sit in the sun and suck an orange ? Is a toddler ill- clothed, if it is browned from the naked toes to the naked middle and beyond by months of genial sunshine ? However such things may be, the poverty is abject if we make money the symbol ; and this want of money involves an almost ludicrous poverty of material. That simple carriage, the wheelbarrow, is scarcely known. Even the municipal servant who cleans out the suburban gutters carries off the mud and leaves in a straw basket. Donkeys' and mules' panniers are commoner than carts, and the carts chiefly consist of a few flat boards on wheels with rough stakes for the sides.

* *