THE WELCOME OF AN INN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your contributor under the title "The Welcome of an Inn" has some things to say which we must all applaud about the need of providing in this country "the welcome every traveller from the New World has a right to expect." But we doubt if he has given much serious consideration to the problem for which he has so attractive a solution. He writes easily of the purchase of " five hundred historic inns." Does be know the kind of price a "historic inn" will command if it is in a place to which the tourist goes ? Such inns are occasionally, and one at a time, to be had at a moderate price, but that is when the property is derelict and needs such capital sunk in it as puts it out of profit-earning for years.
Has your contributor thought of the cost of those "modern amenities" which are essential to his scheme— expensive enough when they are part of a new building, but much more so when they have to be contrived in ancient fabric ? And does he realize that when his syndicate has found and bought and modernized these inns, it will still have to get them managed, and by managers who will be above the temptation to rook their customers in the fat months so that when the lean months come they may still live ?
We venture to suggest, Sir, that it is time for a better understanding of the innkeeper's problem. For he is after all a trader, and whether he be individual or syndicate, has still to make a living out of a trade which is more at the mercy of season and weather than any other. How would mine host of coaching days have dealt with a hundred unannounced guests on a Sunday which turned fine in defiance of all forecasts of
bad weather ? And that is only one of the modern inn- keeper's troubles. Let the public give credit and support to the few individuals and to the several organizations which are horestly endeavour- ing to fulfil the innkeeper's obligation. And then in an increasing number of places the visitor from overseas will find, not the "frowsty bedrooms" of your contributor's article, but an "assured accommodation of good quality."—! am, Sir, &c., R. SANDS, Secretary.
Trust Houses Limited, 53 Short's Gardens, W.C. 2.
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