SOME FOREIGN IMPRESSIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:]
STE,-I have just returned from a motor-tour through Franco and Germany, and everywhere we found the harvest delayed by weather. In the last week in August much of the hay was still unearned and much of the corn uncut. But what struck us most was the comparative absence of children in the towns and villages of France, while in Germany the streets and roads were full of them. And of such children,—well fed, well clothed, and bursting with happiness. I am not a politician, merely an ordinary traveller, but we could see no signs what- ever of people being brought up on cheap meat or bad bread. In the German towns there were no corner-loafers, as we have them in England, but all the young men were well set up, busy, and, so far as one could tell, abundantly prosperous and contented. I confess that what I saw made me wish that I had some of my self-satisfied, over-confident fellow-country- men with me that they also might see how far behind Germany we are.
I am not going to say anything political in this letter, or you may not print it, but I may, I trust, say that to me two bright spots—and only two—appeared in my visionary horizon. One is the hold which the Boy Scout movement is taking on our young generation, and the other is the way in which, in spite of all kinds of rebuffs, men are working at the Territorial scheme. In these ways we shall have in due course (let us hope that it will not be too late) some millions of Britishers who have been awake when most of the others have been lethargic, dull, or asleep,—men who have shown a practical interest in the welfare and security of our country, and who will be ready when the time comes (and it may not be far off) to sacrifice even their lives for its sake.—I am,
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