In theory we are all on saving bent just now, for it is only by saving that many of us can do anything towards winning the great fight; and that each one of us must do something, everyone agrees. Unfortunately, in practice, to us as a nation saving does not come easily: we have not the instinct to save. We know no more, indeed, than sparrows, of the art of making sixpence do the work of a shilling. Quite a fair number of the petty economies we pride ourselves on having effected, of late, are ending in something nearly akin to waste. Evidently we shall have to learn from other nations, nations more thrifty than ourselves, if we are ever to do anything really worth doing in the way of saving. And there is hardly a nation in Europe from which we might not learn if we would. The Germans are experts in all that concerns economy: were it otherwise the war would be nearer its end than it is. The Austrians, too, although by nature as wasteful as we are, have been driven by lack of means into cunning devices for making money go far. These are enemy nations, it is true; still, that is no reason, surely, why we should not learn from them, even though we may not buy with them, sell with them, or even talk. Quite recently the Relief Committee in Strassburg issued a most instructive public notice. It is an appeal to parents to show their patriotism, as well as their thrift and care for public health, by seeing to it that their children go barefoot this summer. ‘By economising in boots you save leather, and thus render valuable service to your country,’ they are informed. Now if our School Authorities could be induced to issue some such notice as this, and to address it imperatively to parents of all classes alike, not only would much leather be saved, and with it much money, but many poor little children would have a much better chance than they have, of living and thriving, while many poor mothers would be able to face the world more cheerily. It is safer by far to go barefoot, as everyone who has ever tried it knows, than to wear shoes unless they be good; and in normal times, for every child who wears good shoes, shoes into which water cannot make its way, there are legions who wear shoes that leak, that have gaps through which toes poke out, soles that serve no purpose. And the end of this is wet stockings, entailing coughs and colds, croup, and even pneumonia. Really good shoes are expensive, it must be remembered: to keep a family of sturdy, active youngsters well shod costs more than to keep them well dressed. ‘We should get along fine if it was not for the shoes,’ I am always being told by working-class mothers. ‘It’s the shoes that take all the money.’ ‘Not a week goes by but there’s mending to be done, even if there’s no shoes to be bought,’ a very trustworthy woman assures me. ‘Blakies, it’s true, are a help; but one must have something to fasten them on to.’