Our Own C ountry First ?
THE public-spirited bodies which look after the interests of British sea-side resorts and spas have not neglected the opportunities afforded by the economic crisis of 1931. The joint conference of the British Health Resorts Association, the Spa Federation, and the Travel and Development Association, rebently held at Bath, is a sign that our hotel directors, railway managers and tourist agents are alive to the possibilities of the coming summer. The various movements which have been labelled " Buy British," " Come to Britain " and " Spend your holidays at home," backed by uninviting foreign exchanges, not only had the effect last year of filling the English resorts and emptying the French ones, but started an outburst of activity among all the caterers for recreation the like of which had not been known since the War. Plumbers got busy all over England providing the hitherto neglected hot-water installations. The hotels determined to become " cheaper, gayer and more attrac- tive," as one of the directors put it. The railways have been speeding up their time-tables and revising their fare policies. The motor coaches needed no spurring to take their part in the festival. Even the farmers in remote country districts set up signs to show that they had fields to let to community campers.
Distinct benefits have resulted from the movement in the form of cheaper and more efficient services and the awakening of a spirit of enterprise in new directions. Moreover, it is a real gain that larger numbers of people should acquire the habit of exploring their own country in a spirit of inquiry and appreciation. But at the same time, since there can never be a serious danger of a real neglect of what is beautiful in our own country by our own people, the greatest value to be derived from this setting of our house in order should be that it will attract visitors to our shores from overseas ; that we shall be ready to entertain foreign guests ; that " Come to Britain " may be an alluring appeal. And this faces us at once with a difficulty. Can we effectively push the " Come to Britain " campaign in foreign countries at the same time and in the same breath as we are urging Englishmen not to spend their holidays abroad ? Can we plausibly appeal to Frenchmen and Americans and Germans to come to us when we insist that patriotism forbids our own people to go to them ? Moreover, is it desirable that Britons, on whose Empire the sun never sets, and whose foreign trade depends on intercourse with all the world, should be content to be exclusively islanders, shutting themselves up in their island pleasures and their insular culture ?
Some of us, reflecting on the half-deserted towns and villages of the Riviera and the coast of Normandy, with their empty villas and languishing hotels, and remember- ing that not all the hosts were considerate, have been tempted to suggest that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But the flippant comment is without serious foundation. Not only is it an immense gain to get to know something of the ways and thoughts of people in other countries, but also to set up personal contacts, making our friendship a means of understanding or, to put it at the lowest, a source of profit which another nation is unwilling to lose. Those who are anxious to promote tourism in this country will not help their cause by killing tourism in other countries. The travelling habit promotes the travelling habit. Those who have discovered the joy of exploring what is strange and interesting in foreign places are those who will most eagerly search for what is strange and interesting in England. For the sake of trade and political good will it is desirable that Britons should be seen constantly on the Continent, not only in France and Belgium, but also, say, in Germany, whose citizens, in social life, so easily get on with the English, and ought to be induced to visit England more and more. The one solvent of the spirit of narrow and exclusive nationalism is constant inter- course between the members of different countries, not for trade alone, but for culture, for study, for pleasure, and for friendships.
Approached in this spirit of international give and take, the " Come to Britain " movement assumes another character. There can be no pride of country greater than that of people who, knowing foreign countries, are con- scious that their own has treasures which can compare with those of any other in the world. They are treasures which need guarding jealously. England is the smallest of all the great countries in the world, and we can there- fore less afford to waste a single square mile of its beauties The " Come to Britain " appeal imposes on us, not merely the obvious obligation to improve our hotels or quicken our transport, but to plan our cities, to guard our Waterloo Bridges, to preserve the countryside, and to stop the disfigurement of beautiful places by reckless and unsightly building. It imposes on us the duty to enforce the doctrine that ugliness is a crime. We preserve carefully the contents of our famous museums, which, as a Royal Commission has told us, are still the richest in the world and represent in economic value alone hundreds of millions. No one has attempted to calculate the cash value of the woods, the meadows, the hills, the landscapes of the countryside. But they, too, have a cash value, since even for things of the spirit men pay their Treasury notes and their dollars. In whichever way we value them, they are in danger of detriment through the unchecked activities of the motorist, the ferry-builder and the advertiser. Yet never was there a time when these national assets were so generally appre- ciated by the people, or when it should be more possible to organize effort to preserve them for our own satis- faction and the delight of our visitors.
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