Document two
How to be useful in wartime
First and foremost - keep your heads. Be calm. Go about your ordinary business quietly and soberly. Do not indulge in excitement or foolish demonstrations.
Think of others more than you are wont to do. Think of your duty to your neighbour. Think of the common weal [good].
Try to contribute your share by doing your duty in your own place and your own sphere. Be abstemious and economical. Avoid waste.
Do not store goods and create an artificial scarcity to the hurt of others. Remember that is an act of mean and selfish cowardice.
Do not hoard gold. Let it circulate. Try to make things easier, not more difficult.
Remember those who are worse off than yourself. Pay punctually what you owe, particularly to your poorest creditors, such as washerwomen and charwomen.
If you are an employer, think of your employed. Give them work and wages as long as you can, and work short time rather than close down.
If you are employed, remember the difficulties of your employer. Instead of dwelling on your own privations, think of the infinitely worse state of those who live at the heart of war, and are not only thrown out of work but deprived of all they possess.
Explain to the young and ignorant what war is, and why we have been forced to wage it.
ADVICE TO THE PEOPLE OF DARTFORD IN 1914