TIELESS JAPANESE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 93, 21 April 1939, Page 18

TIELESS JAPANESE

SAVING MONEY FOR WAR

It is reported from Japan that patriots are ceasing to wear ties as one form of economy that will enable the cost of war to be met, says the "Manchester Guardian." It may be excusable to wonder how much in the way of clothes will be left to those patriots if the war goes on as long as seems likely. As it happens, the sumptuary idea was advocated by Ruskin in an exactly opposite sense, for if patriotic Japanese are leaving off accessories in order to prolong the war, Ruskin once informed the women of England that they, or women in other countries, could stop any war in rather a similar way. "I tell you that at whatever moment you choose to put a period to war you could do it with less trouble than you take indressing to go out to dinner. . . . Let every lady in the happy classes of civilised Europe simply vow that while any cruel war proceeds she will wear black . . . with no jewels no ornaments, no excuse for an invasion into prettiness—l tell you again no war would last for a week."

The advice somewhat gorgeously over-estimates the importance of what might be described as the "Ascot front"; it is "ladylike" in the more lamentable sense. So it is hardly surprising, that the system has not been tried anywhere in the many wars which have broken out since Ruskin made his declaration, nor does it seem to have been brought to the attention of the League of Nations at Geneva. And now that modern tendencies are in the direction of putting women into uniform there seems less room for his advice than ever. Perhaps women's uniform might carry the motto worn by the troops of one of the old German bishops, "Give peace in our time."