THOU SHALT NOT!

Observer, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6, 13 October 1917, Page 3

THOU SHALT NOT!

1 Froth, Frills and Camisoles

THE value of any law lies in its universal acceptance by the people it attempts to regulate. Laws still exist in many statute

books which have no effect in fact and which are not obeyed. You can control people by a scrap of paper if the people consent to be controlled. Disturbances of age old conventions by state enactments are common enough in many countries and new crimes are created with new laws. • It will be a crime after December 1 of this year to enter a hotel if six o'clock has struck. This is enacted, as you know, as a means for winning the war. The idea underlying this is that the state requires the money you have spent on refreshment after six o'clock evening to buy victory with. The state hasn't yet madfe it illegal for women to wear 20 guinea coats and it is still perfectlty legjitimat'3 for a gi)rl to spend three weeks soldier's pay on a camisole (whatever that may be).

It is presumed that money saving is the sole reason for enacting thjat a hotel boarder may have alcohol with his meals but may not buy se-ven-pennyworth of beer for his friend at the same table, although he may immediately' go out and purchase a shilling cigar for him. Perhaps there's a moral aspect. Maybe the diner with seven pennyworth of low gravity beer under his waistcoat would break the furniture and attack the waitresses who are probably wearing boots at 3 guineas a pair and have fur allotment coats hung up in the vestibule. The Government ' has not yet assured itself that the saying on six o'clock hotel closing is going to pay for anything else than unnecessary clothes. The Government which is able to dictate what we shall drink and 1 what we shall pay to eat, can also dictate what we shall wear and what we shall pay for it. The average French woman at the present time is clothed for 20 fr&ncs. The N.ZGovernment has as good a reason to issue dress regulations as it has to issue drink regulations if it is really out to make people save money.

In N.Z. every available luxury is indulged in by people whose fathers had no luxuries whatever and who were generally hard working pioneers. We call this sort of thing a "high standard of living" although no one "lives,"on pink silk pyjamas, dian. >nd rings, five guinea camisoles, half-leg boots, eight guinea "tailor-made," and so on. The foremothers of these women dressed in homespun and thick boots and a ninepenny bonnet. Please don't imagine present writer objects to this orgy of dress. What he objects to is the Government method of making "fish of one and fowl of another." Everbody has a right to spend his money as he likes, and Bertie is welcome to buy pale silk socks with clocks on if he wants to. The Government, however, could, if it wanted to, enormously cheapen the "cost of living" b|y imposing dress regulations—that is if the Government is really serious about the money side of "it. Everybody is, of course, aware that the Government is never personally serious. It listens to sporadic shrieks and "acts accordin'."

The gloom of the "Thou Shalt Nots," however, is to be lightened by dizzier attire than ever— all those sevenpences will go either on the back of a human being or to back a horse. We are the largest kind of paper moralists on earth. Other people laugh at us, but we never laugh at ourselves. Even in Parliament few dare to express their real opinions. Sometimes a voice in the wilderness (like the voice of Oliver Samuels) rises with almost a laugh in it, but there is a "sh-h-h! you will offend somebody who has doormats to sell and therefore wants the money now spent in bars," and the voice dies away. Now that the Efficiency Board is frankly political it is certain that nothing will be done to direct the personal habits of people apart from their bar habits. This is all that matters and it only matters (as a war measure) after three whole years of bloody war.