Algernon Blackwood

“ Prices have doubled; food is very scarce and heating inadequate; German-Switzerland, generally speaking, is still pro-German, while French-Switzerland is still splendidly pro-Ally (if perhaps, more strictly speaking, pro-French) ; and as for passports, that is a question to be solved by three main considerations: Whether Switzerland can feed an army of tourists, whether the French can supply rolling-stock to convey them there, and whether the British Government intends to encourage money being spent outside this country. There are evidently some optimists among us. ”

“ The hotels, of course, are hungry for us. The managers, scanning their empty dining-rooms (many a big hotel counts barely a dozen guests at present) , return to their desks and calculate prices and profits in the good time coming. And these prices, they frankiy admit, must be high for a year or two at least; the losses, carried by the banks at a high rate of interest for the past four years, have been gigantic; it is we who are expected to recoup them.
The days of a cheap Switzerland, I believe, are gone forever, with many another happy pre-war condition. ”

“ While on this question of heating, the trains, too, may be mentioned. The locomotive tenders are piled with wood, express trains hardly exist, not only is the service reduced to a minimum, but every train is an omnibus train, and from Geneva to Montreux, formerly a matter of three hours or so, is now a whole day’s journey. ”