UNITED WORKERS.
[TO 711R EDITOR OF MR SPECTV70R."]
SIR,—Ai the moment when we are told by our leaders that the financial situation demands the most serious attention of the nation, it behoves all non-combatants to examine their consciences and to say to themselves : " How can I best help my country along the difficult road to victory ? " For the non-combatants there is a danger led the direct path may be lost sight of in the many ways of service. It is to the problem involved in the simplifying and correlating of these that a group. of persons who have associated themselves. as United Workers desire to call your attention. Though the solution to the financial difficulties must be found in a very practical form, they believe the problem to be mainly spiritual.
On this spiritual side the need is to unite isolated fires of faith, devotion, and self-sacrifice into one great blaze, and on the temporal side to set this immense force working in the most effectual way. Individual soldiers are powerless to achieve' victory, but individuals organized into an army may command it. In like manner, the individual efforts of non-combatants are much less effective to further self-denial and economy without that organization, that voluntary discipline, in which the force of example and the spirit of comradeship come to our aid.
The first step has been taken by the establiehment of an 'office at 175 Piccadilly, where information and suggestions con.: corning the practice of economy on a national scale can be
immediately obtained. Local groups of United Workers are being established for a similar purpose, and for the stimulation of saving with the aim of lending money to the Government to carry on the, war, and to prepare for bad times in the future. All work will be carried on through the machinery of existing organizations wherever possible, but if no such machinery exists for the supply of an urgent need, it will be the task of United Workers to provide it.
It is not too much to say that that truly economic saving which concerns the proper use of necessaries is almost entirely woman's business, while she has a large but perhaps not pre- ponderant share in that which concerns the consumption of luxuries. These matters are the affair of all women of all classes, or, rather, as the matter is one requiring individual thought and care, of every woman of every class. We appeal, therefore, for the active, earnest, and instant co-operation of both men and women as United Workers and in the furtherance of the aims hero sot forth. The situation is most gravely urgent, and we feel that immediate steps should be taken to meet it.—I am,
[We most warmly recommend the organization described by the Public Trustee to the attention of our readers, and hope that many of them will be able to associate themselves with the work of the United Workers—an excellent name for a finely designed scheme. With all that Mr. Stewart says as to the need for spiritualizing the effort to save in the national cause we are in hearty agreement. There is nothing sordid or material in such saving. It is saving for the Motherland—for England. We do not see why the effort of the United Workers should not in many cases be combined with the policy of " Down glasses " during the war which the Spectator is preaching. Why should not the United Workers ask their special groups of friends and neighbours to give up intoxicants during the war, and place the sum saved each day or week to the credit of the nation ? There are few who could not in this way save £5 in a year.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
