"NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS."

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17431, 17 April 1922, Page 13

"NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS."

ORIGIN OP THE PHRASE. In a speech delivered at the opening of the Business Efficiency Exhibition, Mr Gordon Self ridge pointed out that Adam Smith, not Napoleon, originated the saying that the Jjlnglish were a nation of shopkeepers. It is odd, say 3 the "Manchester Guardian," how persistently this phrase is fathered by Napoleon, seeing that another distinguished Frenchman applied it publicly to England before Napoleon emerged from obscurity. Speaking in the Convention on June 11th, 1790, Barere, who was then a member of the Committee of Public Safety, remarked: "Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his shopkeeping nation (ca nation boutiquiere)." There is no authentic record of Napoleon ever using the phrase, though naturally he endorsed it when the Emperor Francis 11. said to him: "The English n.re a nation • of merchants. To secure for the commerce of the world™ they are willing to set the Continent in flames." Byron seems to have regarded the description of England as a compliment, for "at the first sight of Albion's chalky belt" Don Juan feels A kind of pride that he should be among Those haughty shopkeepers, who sternly de?.l Their goods and edicts out. from pole to"pole, And made the very billows pay them toll.