After one of the hardest years the world as a whole has experienced in our times there may be some thought among the people at large that holidays and the holiday spirit should be allowed to lapse until times grow better. In this a serious mistake may be made, for holidays are among the most vital agencies to be counted upon in helping to produce that world recovery for which all look with longing. They are, in the first place, essential to bodily health. The annual vacation is a tonic that often has, for its only-and greatly inferior-alternative, a doctor's bill or a spell in hospital.

The refreshment of mind and spirit which a break from the daily grind brings is one of the factors needed to help in restoring that confidence which is everywhere regarded as the essential forerunner of better times.

To stand aside from the constant strain of business and let the rest of the world go by for a while is the best way to obtain a true perspective, to find out what are the “first things” that should be dealt with first, to see what others are doing, and to germinate new and better ideas and ideals.

Now, perhaps more than even in R. L. Stevenson's time, one would “like to rise and go where the golden apples grow”- and the place would certainly be harder to find. But to move into new surroundings and pause a while and play; to see new things-apples or elephants, bays for bathing in, geysers for gazing at, the moving stairway of the city emporium, or the mowing machine and the lowing cattle of the way-back farm or run, the matchmaker at work in the factory, or the milking machine at the sheds-is to obtain the best kind of rest, if it is not one's regular job.

So every wise doctor advises a holiday that will provide “something different” for the patient. New Zealand is singularly fortunate in its wealth of holiday places. Each of the cities has claims upon the attention of country dwellers and those who live in the other cities. The call of the sea can be answered upon safe and sandy shores at hundreds of open beaches or sheltered inlets around our well indented coasts. Inland, the call of the bush and lake and river claims campers and trampers, the trout of a thousand streams lure the angler, and pleasant country hotels or homesteads are happy holiday places for tired city dwellers.

Very complete arrangements for holiday travel by train have been made this year, as it is recognised that with the need page 6 for economy uppermost, many who would perhaps otherwise travel by private car will take advantage of the vastly cheaper transport which the railways provide for their major journeyings.

There is something about a trip by train that gives it a holiday flavour right from the shrill of the starting whistle to the groan of the final Westinghouse stop; and this touch of romance, coupled with the real convenience and comfort found on the way, makes an irresistible appeal to the great bulk of the travelling public, who this year have reason to flock in ever greater numbers to the holiday trains of the Dominion.