THE NON-COMBATANT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2272, 5 October 1914, Page 7

THE NON-COMBATANT

WHAT HE OAN DO.

In black v bold type, the "Manchester Guardian" of August 7. published the following advice to citizens who ask: "What can the non-combatant do?"

1. Ho can help to prevent financial panic by drawing from his bank only as much as he absolutely needs for immediate expenses: Let him draw out less than usual, not more. Any nui on a bank would be a- serious blow struck at England.

2. He can help- to keep food cheap and. all his countrymen properly fed by buying no more food at, a tune than his household needs for the next few days. Anyone who lays in exceptionally largo stores/of food is helping to raise the price of food, and to make millions of English men, women, and children go hungry. He is thus helping the German fleet to do exactly what it wants to do— what it would do to us if it could .destroy our Navy and get the command of the seas. ' s ,3. He can live more simply and inexpensively than usual. Be will thus be husbanding the nation's wealth. Wars have to be fought by means of both men and money. Any waste' 1 of money on luxuries or unnecessary comforts now is like a useless throwing away of soldiers' lives. It means so many casualties the more in one of the two' forces, which are fighting for us. 4. If ho is an employer he can increase the country's resisting power by keeping as many of his men employed as possible, if only oil short time. Any loss thus incurred by him 'will bo a direct contribution' to the most vital of all war funds. 5. If he is 1 a workman he can do his best to help any employer who thus helps him and us all. 6. .He can help by keeping, in every sense, as calm a,s possible, by refraining from hysterical and frothy demonstrations, by. being neither too much cast down at small reverses—which must come—nor wildly exultant' at small successes. 7. Ho. can help bur soldiers to make the war an honourable and chivalrous combat by declining, as they do, to believe lightly in imputations of inhumanity, and dishonour against our enemies in the field. In every war such imputations aro current on both sides. Nine-tenths of them are untrue. Their circulation may terribly intensify the distress of our soldiers' families at home. / 8. He can keep himself sober and in good health, remembering that until the war is actually over 'we cannot know how many who aro , non-com-batants now may become combatants, and woidd be more useful to their country if fit and well: 9. Ho can help by remembering that ire,are. all comrades in a tight place, and that it is neither manly nor safe to try to secure one's self or ono's property by means that will make the way out harder for other people. If we allact like good comrades wo all shall be safe and we shall have earned our safety. , .