24 OCTOBER 1952, Page 5

Mr. Butler relents and does not relent. The Tate Gallery

regains the two or three attendants it was required to dismiss in the interests of economy—surely a shabby kind of economy —but the English traveller abroad is still restricted to £25 a year, though his children over 12 will in future get the, adult allowance. It is no use rebelling against every hardship, but national prestige is very genuinely involved here, quite apart from the obvious desirability of Britons seizing every possible opportunity of meeting citizens of other countries. It is no doubt not impossible to get a kind of continental holiday on £25, but the Englishman who can buy nothing in the shops and must save every franc on what he eats and drinks is becoming a bye-word—a kind of poor relation who is pitied rather than respected. Not atoll a good thing.* *