GOODBYE THRIFT

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 86, 9 October 1915, Page 14

GOODBYE THRIFT

THE WAVE OF EXTRAVAGANCE. "It is probably true," says the Chronicle, "on the average that as individuals we save a smaller proportion and spend a larger proportion than our fathers did or than is wise. There are many reasons for it. Some are particular ones — e.g., the rage for motor-cars, or the growth of expensive personal amusements, such as golf. But behind these particular manifestations there is a much more general cause at work, namely, the vast development of all that commercial machinery, whose object it is to induce individuals to buy what they do not really want. " The amount of ability which flows to-day into useless luxury and non-pro-ductive work is scarcely inferior to that which is devoted to production itself. Its effect on the volition of the average consumer, as ultimately expressed in his purchases, is that of a never-ending bombardment by guns of all calibres. Few indeed can stand up against it; and in a comparatively short time — indeed, within living memory — it has completely revolutionised 'the personal habits of nearly all classes, increasing their cost out of all proportion io the genuine increase of well-being. "To state this problem is not to solve it ; indeed, no clear solution is visible. But one thing is apparent — that the old dogma about private expenditure being always wiser than public cannot possibly be npheJd."