New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-10
"All Our Wealth"
A SeIf-Searching Discussion o.
What Great Britain Must Be
Prepared to Do for the
Sake of Victory
From III. London EconomisD

From The London Economist
TT the war is to have the right end,
i it is plain as the way to parish
church" that all our wealth that can
be brought to bear on it will have to
be put into it. 1t is equally clear
that this is not yet being done. The
work of the War Savings Committee
has had great success, but it may
be doubted whether it has done much
more than increase the saving effort
of those who were already in the
habit of saving; the great body of
people, rich and poor, who cannot
understand the wickedness of self
indulgence during this crisis, are still
untouched by appeals to patriotism
in the purse. The spending habit,
and the fallacy which represented it
as good for trade, are so ingrained
in the minds of most classes that it
would take years of preaching and
education to modify them appre-
Gladly.
Evidence of extravaganza is on all
sides in the West End of London. In
the busy industrial centres, where
war profits and war wages are be-
ing poured out, it is said to be even
more blatantly obtrusive. Probably
there is little to choose between the
two sexes in this respect, but female
extravaganza is chiefly in a more Wis
lille form, being Haunted on the per-
sons of those who practise it; and
tie example set by fashionable
women has been disastrous. 1t may
also be said that the splendid work
done by women for the war has been
rivaled by their achievements in
barbaric vanity. Under Fashion
Fancies," 1.-THE Bystander" observes
that "those in authority in millinery
realms must have been very much on
the qm rive to produce anything so
absolutely ideal to the modistic mood
of the moment as the latest aspect of
uelour hats. In the best qualities
these are simply carrying all before
them, a big variety of becoming
shapes enabling them to take far
more important place in all dress
schemes than that held formerly by
this particular type of hesdgear,'
and so on. The "modistic mood OF
the moment" surely deserves to live
as an expression Of the pre-occupa-
! ton during the greatest crisis that
ever shook the world of many mem.
bers of the sex that claims larger
share of spiritual sensibility. Small
wonder that on another page of the
same magazine a soldier on leave is
quoted as remarking: Zone night, as
we watched the seething crowds OF
semi-stage sirens doing the very
latest things in trots and saunter:
at the very best supper club, Lovely
crowd to die for. What" II j:
small wonder also that when the
working classes see and read oil
these extravagances going on "aS
usual" they should be more or less
deaf to the appeal for self-denial in
war time, seeing that II means Sc
much to them to forego the chance
that higher wages give them Of Inn
proving their standard of comfort
( II all our wealth is to be put into the
war, it is evident that new measure:
will have to be taken TO divert much
~ il from purely frivolous, and otter
vulgar, self-indulgence. All oui
wealth cannot be used for the war
Much Of it is in the shape OF fixed
capital, which is necessary to pro-
duction, and could not, even if II
were desirable, be shot out OF a gun
What is possible, and will have to be
done, is that our whole productive
energy, apart from what Is needed tc