It is not only in England that greater efforts are
being made to provide for American and other oversea visitors. An Irish friend sends me a copy of the Irish Tourist, which under good auspices is trying to attract more visitors from all parts of the English-speaking world to Ireland. My friend writes : " I believe it is most desirable for us to try to get larger numbers of British people to visit us. The tourist movement is one of the best means we have of bringing our two peoples more closely together. It is essential for us in Ireland to realize that Great Britain is our best and practically our only customer, we being an agricultural people and likely so to remain, in our time at least. Yet by pinpricks we constantly irritate our best friend ! " Certainly, there are few parts of the English-speaking world where a pleasanter holiday can be spent than in Ireland, north or south ; but if Ireland expects to develop a tourist traffic like that of Switzerland, she will have to do something to improve her hotels. What Ireland needs more than anything else is a chain of up-to-date hotels rivalling in comfort those owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Irish patriots should devote their • energies to practical work of this kind. TANTUM.
Previous page
