IMPOVERISHED SWITZERLAND.
ras EDITOR OF THE .HPICTATOR."1
Sin —In your footnote to Professor 3. W. Adamson's letter in the Spectator of January 23rd you very rightly say: "This is not a case for a public subscription, but for the individual action of friend to friend." As this is the second statement about the supposed poverty of Switzerland, or of a Swiss class, which I have observed in English journals this week, it may be well to remind your readers that, however desirable and natural it may be to send help to friendly individuals who may need it (e.g., old guides), Switzerland is by no means a poor country—indeed, it was on the way to becoming quite a rich country ; though doubtless it has been bard hit by the war, in common with other neutral countries. Although, of course, there are far fewer visitors in Swiss hotels this winter than last, it must not be forgotten that the Christmas rush of English people to the Alps is quite a modern thing, and that very few of the smaller mountain hotels are at all dependent upon it.
The modest Swiss people are fond of telling English and Americans of theirs being a poor country, just as they still fondly imagine all English and American travellers to be rich. Again, because most of the well-to-do Swiss work hard and live simply and sensibly, visitors do not always realize that there are few, if any, towns in England no larger than Geneva, Basle, or Zurich which are so rich. I understand that in each of those towns there are at least two hundred millionaires (persons worth £40,000). Extreme poverty such as we know it is rare in Switzerland, and the number of unemployed is normally very small, thanks to an excellent system of education, peasant proprietorship, bureaux de place- ment, and other causes. Even in the picturesque but some- times squalid sub-Alpine villages there is much less real poverty than visitors often suppose. The women are thrifty and know how to cook, and the men work hard. Some years ago, when staying in the very valley mentioned by your corre- spondent, an Englishman offered to the cure a fS note for the poor of his village: it was very politely returned with the remark : " Thank you, Sir, we have no poor! "—I am, Sir, &c., Bristol. H. STUART THOMPSON. P.S.—Of course money does not go quite so far (except in Swiss hotels) as in the British Isles.
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