The Dominion. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1910. A THRIFT CONGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 842, 14 June 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1910. A THRIFT CONGRESS.

The International Thrift Conferonce which a cable message tells us to-day is sitting in Edinburgh may strike a public weary of Congresses and Conferences as a triumph of unpracticalness. Yet there is hardly any question upon which an International Congress, can be held more important than this question of thrift. There are few countries in which the chief political issues have not their origin in the necessity, which is universally admitted, for preventing, or at any rate reducing, tho economic waste that proceeds from certain kinds of legislation and certain methods and principles' of administration. The Edinburgh Conference will of course fail to produce any practical results or to furnish any practical guide to thrift for individuals and Governments, but it will at any rate arouse interest in one of the most vitally important problems of the day. Thrift is notoriously not a characteristic of either the individual or the- Government in this country j , indeed, our Government is probably one of the most unthrifty and Wasteful on earth. But New Zealand is by no means singular in this respect; economists everywhere are giving more and more attention to the causes and the possible remedies of waste by the individual and the State. Lord Ivosebeky, whose firm adherence to the original principles of Liberalism makes him take a very serious view of the expensive experiments that are being undertaken by the British Government, said last week, in a letter read at the centenary of the Edinburgh Savings Bank, that "the outlook for, thrift was never less promising than now." This wa-s owing "to grinding taxation, total disregard for economy in public affairs, private luxury, and. a passion for pleasure disdaining thrift, though thrift is at the root of independence and self-respect—two vital principles of national and individual life."

This is not a new theme with Lokd Rosebeky, who delivered a valuable address on thrift at the end of 1908. He _ was not so much concerned with thrift as a great economic blessing as with tho valuable influence of thrift in the foundation and strengthening of character. From the financial point of view, of course, thrift is the foundation of till opulence and' all true and solid prosperity, and that there are few cases,, even amongst the " poor, in which there is no margin for thrift is. a fact established by overwhelming evidence in the shape of individual histories. By some people, and by some Governments, thrift, which Lord Rosebery defines as "getting full value for your money and looking ahead," is condemned as a virtue so degrading as to be indistinguishable from vice, but, according to Lord Rosebery, "of all the great philanthropists, all the great financial benefactors of their species of whom we have any-record,. tho most generous have . been thrifty men." In the present, age, which prides itself on the betterment of its "standard of living," the picture of Scotland iu thp. eighteenth century, the time of perhaps her direst, poverty, will .not be considered <ls pleasant one ,but it is in some respects inspiring.

Our great grandfathers (said lord Eosebcry) did great things in those, days un a mess of pottage. They hud no more, but witli it they helped to mould tlio Empire. They maintained their poor without legal compulsion, tbey sought nothing from external help, and they laid, in their nakedness ami their barrenness, ' tho foundations of the prosperity which reigns in Scotland at the present time. We should not care to share their privations, but we should not be unwilling to bo convinced that we possess their independence, their self-reli-ance, and their self-respect; aud I regard that as the greatest blessing resulting out of thrift—independence of character. . . . Thrift means care, foresight, tenderness for those dependent ou you. Whether those qualities produce thrift, or whether they are produced by thrift, I will not venture to say; but at any rate they aro inseparably intertwined. ■

Unfortunately, no amount of unorganised'preaching upon the material and spiritual value of thrift, the thrift that is not avarice, but a thoughtful prudence quite compatible with generosity, can do very much to help the individual. The blessings of thrift can generally only be properly demonstrated by the hand of adversity. It was only the bad times, for example, that led the New Zealand public to shorten sail last year. If Governments could be made thrifty, however, the most that could be done would be done. Not only, in that event, would the nations flourish more .happily and want and poverty grow less through the abundance produced by the reduction of waste, but the individual would he influenced towards thrift by the spectacle of Ministers for Finance claiming credit, not for increases in revenue, but' for reductions of expenditure and lessening of taxation. "Thrift," said Lord Kosebery in the address from which we have been Quoting, "is tho surest and the strongest foundation of an Empire." All great Empires have been thrifty. The lloman Empire- was founded on thrift; when it ceased to be thrifty it degenerated and came to an end. Prussia and the present German Empire would never' have existed but, for the iron thrift of Frederick the Great and his father. France is of course the great home of true thrift, in Lord Rosebery's opinion "tho most frugal of all nations," because the general '• disinclination amongst tho mass of the people to live beyond their means is reinforced by a great skill in household expenditure. The war of 1870-71 >jcft France apparently crushed for generations, if not for ever. But "the stockings of the French peasantry, in which they had kept their savings of years, were emptied into the chest of the State, and. the huge indemnity and war expense was paid off in a time incredibly short." It would be too much to expect that our Prime Minister would .pay special attention to the proceedings of the Thrift Conference, but at any rate one may ask that he should seo some significance in thu holding of such a gathering. Ho has done much to. banish the idea of thrift from the public mind; the least reparation be could make would bo to act as if he realised that no rise in revenue can do him one hundredth part of the credit that would be due to him for u steady reduction in the cost of government