A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THERE should be a strong demand for reconsideration of the proposed increase in railway meal prices. A Cambridge college charges i s. 6d. for a breakfast fully equal in quality to the railway full breakfast, and more ample ; the railway charge is to be 4s. A London restaurant which I frequent provides an excellent three-cobrse hot lunch, excellently served, for 2s. 3d. ; another, of much the same standard, charges 3s., including coffee ; the railway charge is to be 5s. without coffee. When all allowance is made for restaurant-car costs, this discrepancy is too great. British Railways should be able to do better than that. The alternative, and a dis- tasteful one, will be snack-boxes or home-made sandwiches in the carriage—as pre-1900. Of the two, instead of the same meal at a higher price, a simpler meal at the same price would be very much preferable, at any rate in the third-class car. That the rank- and-file traveller, drinking only water and no coffee and confining his tip to the bare 10 per cent., should be unable to get lunch on the train for less than 5s. 6d. is all wrong. Lord Inman's successor as chairman of the Railway Hotels Executive should look into this quickly and very closely. It is explained that costs are high ; then determine to lower them.
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