A plea for discrimination in the process of curtailing personal expenditure has been made in a letter from a correspondent on Thursday who recognizes fully that conditions, alas, make it impossible for some to take any credit for economy—it is forced on them by the hard facts of their till or banking accounts, if any. Yet there are many who can still take care to maintain their usual scale of expenditure and then have enough for charitable disbursements. They should consider, if they can, how much good they can do by assisting shops to keep the ball rolling. If indeed they were to indulge in a little healthy extravagance—such as purchase of new clothes in order to facilitate ihe gift of old ones to deserving societies or the determination to make their Christmas card contacts more expansive than usual in proof of Shanghai's ability to keep smiling—they should incur no censure on that account. Particularly is it desirable to encourage local industries and local shopping enterprise. Those who profess knowledge on the subject are ready to aver that advertised local products to-day command good sales. That is further justification for urging the merits of wise spending just now.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.