SAVING AND SPENDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23057, 7 December 1936, Page 11

SAVING AND SPENDING

'' One of the troubles of the world at the present time is that there has been not enough buying because there has been too much saving," said Professor John Hilton, professor of industrial relations in the University of Cambridge, in a recent address. " You have got to face that, of course, —there has been a little too much saving. In the life of the individual there are times when saving is a virtue. In the life of the individual, and still more in the life of the community, and still more even in the great institutions which put money by, there are times when there can ba too much saving. That, I think, is what you mean or should mean, when you say your object is to encourage wise spending, but at the same time to encourage wise saving. This thrift about which good old Samuel Smiles wrote, is a virtue in the individual, but a vice in the community. Don't think that there is any absolute and eternal virtue in saving—there is not. There is a catch in it, a real catch. You must choose the best time, you must lay by when you can spare it. When the time comes to spend you must spend it generously, either on yourself or on your children or on others. There is no virtue whatever in going on saving senselessly."