FRENCH THRIFT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2594, 16 October 1915, Page 7

FRENCH THRIFT

Every week the price of food goes up, and every week the household budget grows less capable of meeting the strain on it, writes tlie Paris correspondent of "The Queen." 'Wherever you go in Paris, food and coal are the problems we talk about, and never manage to solve. It is not only that they aro scarce and that they are expensive, but that there is no one to deliver them. Tho main d'oeuvfe is what we miBS, .and there aro those who say France might follow England's example with advantage to herself and mobilise her women. When every man is for himself the devil gets those who are hindmost, and .in the present war the hindmost in civilian life are not necessarily the shirkers. Tlio game of life, if lived -unselfishly today, is likely to go against us, and thus you get the proof that thrift when pushed to extremes can be more dangerous than tho waste for which our own people are being so criticised. There are thousands of French people who are hoarding their savings who would ho serving their country better in circulating. tliem. But the inner meaning of "Give no thought to the morrow" is the last thing the really thrifty person can grasp. Yet "to-morrow" as we live "to-day" is surely the property of our country, not our owii, and "the reward is neither here nor there." No olio could possibly doubt France's realisation of the war, nor tho splendid intelligence with which her people has mot tlio call. "La France" is to every French mail and women a magic spell; but only one out of a hundred have realised fliat this war is a universal war, and that what France is suffering Serbia has endured much longer, and Poland, is groaning under. Belgium they realise in part, but only what touches them personally do they feel. Those who do understand understand fully, hut they are greatly in the minority. England may not understand, but sho gives with both hands wherever she feels there is need, tt is her foolishness and hor wisdom, for to "cast vour bread upon Urn wi!tsrv ! it, a fashion which !)«(,, .b'ew waved wi fauna 31^05%