BLISS-BY INSTALMENTS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12643, 31 December 1926, Page 11

BLISS-BY INSTALMENTS

One grows more or less wise in one’s Victorian-cum-Neo-Georgian generation. Poised, as it were, between the two eras, forty gets a certain amount of amusement out of comparing notes. Especially when twenty is so ready to oblige with illuminating data. Time was, ere a candid young friend took me unblushingly into his confidence, when I marvelled innocently how. the young people managed to get so much out of life—in the material sense—so early on. And all on incomes not so wonderfully in excess of those their elders earned at a like age,, proportionately speaking, and taking post-wnr prices duly into consideration. Latterly, however, my young friend has '’"'ightened me. Youth believes in bip ''g bliss—by instalments. And enjoying it without delay. In large

chunks. The old idea of save-and-grind and grind-and-save to the late forties ere one dreamed of. buying a “posh” residence, much less a car, is dead as the dodo so far as enterprising youth, not the last ashamed of its voracious appetites, is concerned. What are building societies for? And friendly hire systems? Why wait for the millennium when you can build up quite a dinky little paradise right away, “out of income” ? Youth comes hut once, is youth's consistent watchword to-day. What is the sense of waiting until you are too old to enjoy the fruits of your labours? And with a fine disregard for oldfashioned economics, youth proceeds blithely to invest in its two-seater, its newly-built house, its handsome cabinet-encased gramophone (youth’s the time for dancing!) and its gradu-ally-expanding library—on the instal-

ment plan. And how they smile, these cynical youngsters, at the antcdeluviaii notion of secrecy? They all know they are nil doiug it. And they chuckle jubilantly to each other when the last instalment is paid off the gramophone records or the baby’s bassinette. It’s a great game. . . What if winter comes in the midst of spring? Oil! Fiddlesticks! Who’d be a pessimist? Do the bank balances swell likewise on the instalment system? .... .... Ah 1 That’s their affair . . . But Victorian rela ives, struggling towards modest retirement in the sixties, could tell you a whole lot on that subject! Youth is sometimes lucky ,in its hectio springtime. Sometimes 'it’s not.. In many instances, ..all depends on the Victorian relatives who didn’t believe in tempting destiny on the instalment plan. y . .. . .