WINTER AT HOME [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, —The
rather indiscriminating appeal to all our country- men who habitually winter abroad to come home for this winter is patriotically intended, and is applicable to some cases but not to others. Most English folk who go abroad for mere pleasure and amusement will probably respond to the appeal, and rightly. But there are at least three classes who cannot respond if they would, and who will be hard hit by the fall of the pound. These are (a) those who are actually stranded in foreign lands—English governesses, nurses and teachers, and those especially who have grown old in these avocations and lost touch with England, and have not the means to come home if they had a home to come to ; (b) there are the men of the Mediterranean Fleet, and our merchant sailors who ply in Mediterranean and Black Sea ports ; thirdly (c) there are the official and business classes, tied to specific posts in continental countries, in Embassies, Lega- tions, Consulates and in business houses, many of them long established, in foreign cities, and not least the chaplains of the Gibraltar Diocese, whose spiritual ministrations to their countrymen will be doubly needed in a time of stress. May I plead that these groups of people be not denounced for an absence which they cannot avoid, and that generosity may be shown to the work of the Gibraltar Diocese, which stands to lose something like g5,ocio this winter through the absence of rich visitors ? Perhaps those who are showing their patriotism by wintering at home will extend _it by, remembering their habitual subscription to the Mediterranean Diocese. Its office is 35 Wood Street, Westminster.— 15 Stratton Street, Piccadilly. (Formerly Chaplain of All Saints', Rome).
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