NATIONAL VOLUNTARY ECONOMY CAMPAIGN.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 21 February 1918, Page 3

NATIONAL VOLUNTARY ECONOMY CAMPAIGN.

FOOD WINS THE WAR—SAVE IT

WE are in receipt of, and ..have been asked to publish, the following letter from Mr Jas. Stevens, Chairman of the National Economy League, Palmerston North :—

Sir, —It is earnestly desired and highly desirable that the Press, teachers, clery, picture theatres, civic authorities, local institutions, and those who control Government departments, may succeed in inducing the people of New Zealand to enter wholeheartedly upon a National Campaign of Voluntary Domestic Economy.

The Nation is not so much concerned as to whether an individual may choose to squander his own fortune, for money so dissipated does not disappear like wasted labour or products, which are literally lost. Unlike the fortune of the individual, the wealth of the State belongs to the people, who do not desire and cannot afford to lose it.

It will be infinitely more to our credit and more profitable to the Nation that we should voluntarily accomplish by a loyal patriotic campaign of personal economy, what otherwise will, in the immediate future, be forced upon us, either by legislation or by a disastrous world famine. The effect of such a calamity cannot be wholly .averted, and may be minimised only by the exercise strict economy and a supreme effort in production.

Just to give practical form to what we have in view in thus asking those in authority or in positions of influence to inaugurate this voluntary economy campaign in New Zealand, and thus help to win the war, and to counteract its awful aftermath of starvation, we will point out a few items in everj* day use as examples of what may be accomplished by the combined will of the people. •

We have about 200,000 households in this little country, and if in each of these homes of five persons there is an average daily waste of only one ounce of butter, one ounce of sugar, one ounce of tea, four ounces of bread, and four ounces of meat, then there is a total yearly loss to the world's much needed supply, which, without verifying the figures, is almost beyond belief. These apparently insignificent quantities wasted in»; each New Zealand household daily make a gross annual loss 0f—2,000 tons of butter (being the yield from 32,000|cows), 65,000 seventy pound bags of sugar, 455,000 ten pound boxes of tea, 30,000 bushels of wheat (being the yield of 10,000 acres), and 300,000 fat wethers, or 26,000 fat bullocks. These quantities are more than sufficient to feed the whole of our'N.Z. Expeditionary Forces, whether in camp or hospital, on transports, or at the front. If placed upon the European market they would feed 100,000 starving people, and incidentally bring in an additional million and a-quarter sterling to the Dominion.

We graze or feed upon corn nearly half a million horses in this country, and it is sane to assume that about 100,000 of them serve no useful or economic purpose, and do not pay for their keep. Thus again we fail to send their equivalent of an additional 100,000 bullocks to relieve a world stricken with hunger, and at the same time to strengthen our resources to the extent of another million and a half sterling,

If only 20,000 of our car owners ran but five miles a day for pleasure we will burn a quarter of a million cases of benzine in the year, possibly quite sufficient to meet all our industrial and commercial requirements.

Instances innumerable may be cited whereof the results would tend to make thoughtful people think j others may be incapable of exercising thought or unwilling to do so until the example of their fellows brings the necessity home to them.

There are interesting sidelights on the question which could profitably be made a subject of public discussion. For instanoe, there are many persons, well qualified to judge, who believe that the present surprising verility of the . German people is not due to a,x\ ordinary food supply but rather to a salutary condition of enforced abstinence. Their energies are not thus wasted upon the worse than useless effort to produce, transr port, consume and assimilate more food than is necessary for their sustenance. The result

may easily bo that they are in the enjoyment of abounding health and possess a greater capacity than ever for making 3, supreme and. sustained effort.

Public attention is persistently directed by those in authority to the increasing cost of the neqessaries of life ; what concerns us 'most in this country, is not the

high cost of living, but the cost of high living, among rich and poor alike. Thoughtful men and women who may realise the pleasures and profits to be derived from " plain living and high thinking," and their effect upon the individual and the nation, are invited to communicate their thoughts upon this subject to the Editor of their own home* news" paper, upon whom the people rely tor guidance, to a much greater degree than they yet realise. If the rank and file of volunteers in this national movement could be directed by a man of outstanding ability, one whq. has made a life study of the subject, like Mr Malcolm Fraser, our Government statistician, its success would be assured. Meantime, we may be encouraged by the" thought that in every movement a determined following is stronger than its leader. In this case results can be judged only by the amount of publicity accorded to the scheme, and the hearty co-operation of the mass of our people.