Behind all the spectacular publicity that has swept hundreds of millions
of British shillings into safe and profitable employment is a Lesson of
Preparedness that America may well heed. It means a form of National
Service that is just as vital to the general welfare as physical
training for actual conflict. A nation trained to save is a nation
equipped to meet the shock of economic crisis which is more potent than
the attack of armed forces.
What does it all mean? Simply this: no man can touch the English thrift
campaign without seeing in it another evidence of a great nation's grim
determination to win, whatever the sacrifice.
The British people at home have come to realise that by personal economy
and denial they can serve their country and their cause just as
effectively as those who fight amid the blare of battle abroad. They are
animated by a New Patriotism that is both practical and self-effacing.
It is giving the Englishman generally a higher sense of public devotion:
it is making him a better and more productive human unit: it is
equipping the nation to meet the drastic economic ordeal of to-morrow.
If this lesson of conservation is heeded after the war and becomes a
feature of the permanent British life, then the Great Conflict will
almost have been worth its dreadful cost in blood and treasure. He who
saves now will not have saved in vain.
VI--_The Price of Glory_
When John Jones of the U.
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