TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 6

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

A THRIFTY PEOPLE.

(By PRO BOXO PUBLICO.)

Of all nations the French, I suppose, have made the greatest effort to get back to their pre-war financial condition. Of course, the annual tribute from Germany and the expenditure on the restoration of the devastated areas have given the country a high degree of prosperity in comparison with other countries, but this is by no means the whole story. North America has been wonderfully prosperous, too, but there is a difference. The money that has been pouring into the United States has been used to a large extent in laying down vast industrial plants and to a less extent in gambling in stocks and shares.

We used to think that the Scots were the thriftiest people on earth, but the French beat them at that game. The first thing the average Frenchman thinks when he gets .a little money is not what he can buy, but what he can save. Every family puts something in the stceking. The wage rates are low, and yet a family that hasn't put a bit away for a rainy day feels itself disgraced. It was a sore blow to the people when the franc was stabilised at a fifth of its old value, because it meant that four-fifths of the nation's investments evaporated. And as there are more "rentiers" in France to the. acre than there arc in most countries to the square mile, the loss was serious.

The French middle classes did not worry about business investments. They used to store up gold under the clock or in the proverbial stocking. When gold disappeared from circulation they bought Government stocks and bonds. The small tradesman hoped in this way to save enough to retire on. Other families-were accumulating "dots" for their daughters. Well, eighty per cent of these savings were wiped out, but the nation simply set itself to replace the loss, and thrift became a passion even more intense than before the war. «

There has been no orgy of spending in France as there has been in other countries, and consequently the depression, though it hits France badly," finds the people generally able to carry on cheerfully. The cessation of German payments naturally will embarrass the Government, and taxation will have to be increased, but I doubt if any other nation will feel the strain less.

I have seen it argued that thrift is not a virtue, but if this depression has taught us any .lesson at all, it is surely the value of reserves, and reserves are simply the result of thrill. There is another lesson that we can learn from the French. More than any other people they have the art of making things do. of making the most of available materials. They make a banquet of a herring and a little spinach They don't crumble about the poverty of a meal. Ihey don't -ramble about poverty at all. J hey accept it if it is inevitable and make the best of it. IT don't say they enjoy poor food or meagre fare. But I do say that they make poor food look {rood and taste good.

I oneo heard a man say that the French live always a little more cheaply than they need but they make up for the money they don t spend by spending more time and care on what they do spend.