DOING WITHOUT.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 9 June 1920, Page 4

DOING WITHOUT.

TO DBTBAT HIGH PRICES. in commenting lhe other day on the •tenon oi a hand oi Auckland women • •no nad decided no; iu pay more than : certain prices for various articles oi clothing, we pointed out (says tiie Cnristcliurch **Press ;, j, that anybody could deieal high prices to some extent by “doing without* * costly garmen Is and by dressing simply. In other words the means oi countering Hie high cost oi living lay in the exercise of some sell-restraint in the matter of spending. This is what many people m the United states and Canada appear to be doing now. One may smile' at lho ‘‘Dun ihe Denims, ” or the . “Uvcialis for Everybody- 7 movement that is now sweeping North America, out as a Canadian paper remarks, ikuugh the idea, like the boycott against the high price of potatoes, may nave started as a fad, it begins to look like a crusade. A movement which has • ihe active personal Mipporl oi business men and cleigv men, teachers, and duc- . tors, clerks, schoolboys, and politicians, i to say nothing of the girls and women who have dunned calico or gingham dresses, as a protest against high prices and an eilorl to reduce them, is not to be laughed out ol.’ existence. It m not even to be checked by the disapproval of a Canadian Trades and .Labour Council which, with an astonishing ignorance of economics, objected to il because, of the injurious effect it mighL hav e upon the employment ol 1 garment workers. Tiie movement, however, like so many other reforms, seemed, when the latest mail left Canada, to be iu some danger of being ruined by the ardour of its supporters. The fact that at a fashionable wedding in the Waldorf Astoria iu New York the bride and bridegroom, the bridesmaid, best man, and pursuit, all wore blue overalls, would not help the serious side of the movement. In Canada also it may have suffered from the fact that it provoked a strong rise in the price of denims, against which, as pur American correspondent tells us, precautions were wisely taken iu New Y"urk. One public mart foreseeing the danger oi the price oi denims being thus raised against the workingman who has to wear them, advised men instead to wear old clothes until the price of new suits came down vc-rv considerably. The Civic Employees' Assosociation oi Toronto not only established an Old Clothes' League, but even designed ior it a “coat oi arms.” consisting of a pair of trousers “with a patch on them such as mother used to make.” Some enthusiasts iu .'it. Louts went further, and started a -‘Celluloid Collar Club” — which, one would imagine, will not survive the first hot spell—and a “Cotton Stocking Club.” which ought to have a better chance of a fairly long and useful life. To what extent all these devices will succeed in lowering permanently the cost of clothing remains to be seen, but already they appear to have caused an,outburst of “cheap sales,” which must have done something o relieve the situation, at least temporarily.