THRIFT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1848, 22 April 1887, Page 13

THRIFT.

VIEWED IN ITS MANY PHASES IN RELATION TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. Being One of the Most Highly CoMsreNDEn Essays in the Mutual Life Assurance Society's Recent Competition. (Concluded.) It is less than a century since the first savings baulj was started in England by Miss Priscilla Wakefield, and since then the good these institutions have done is incalculable. The impulse to save is in human nature weak at best, and unless the machinery for saving is all supplied ready to hand, the money burns a hole in the owner's pocket before he can make up his mind bow to invest; it. Miss Wakefield's scheme was designed chiefly for the purpose of encouraging the habit of thrift and forethought among poor children- The Rev. Mr Duncan, of Reuthwell, followed later with a parish savings bank, which did did so much good that many of the towns in England and Scotland started similar institutions. In more recent years the movement has lieeu widely supported by large employers of labour, and now penny and post office savings baDks are one of the greatest sources of benefit to the working classes of the Old Country. The establishment of savings banks in connection with schools has been a still later development, and has been fairly successful in England, more especially in Liverpool and Manchester. The importance of the subject justifies hers a somewhat extended reference to the great success of SCHOOL BANKS 'IN FRANCE. Prom an article on " Thrift among Children," by Miss Agnes Lambert in the Nineteenth Century of April 19, 1886, we gather the following interesting facts. A thoughtful and philanthropic Frenchman — M. De Malaree — by the most persevering efforts was successful in starting in 1874 several savings banks in connection with the schools in France, for the special purpose of receiving tho savings of the children out of their bona ful,o pocket money. They were to deposit their money entirely of their own accord, and the teachers were Lo act solely from professional devotion and without any selfish object.For some time the scheme met with a preat deal of indifference and prejudice, but it was in the end completely successful. By the end of 1885 no fewer than 23,222 of these banks were established in France, with 488,624 depositors, aDd deposits amounting in the aggregate to £451,000. The example of Frauce has more recently been followed in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Brazil. In England the syetem was adopted in 1873, but except in Liverpool and Manchester it has not hitherto proved very successful. There are a few school banks in Scotland, but not a single one in Ireland. In France the- system has more recently been extended to secondary schools and oolleges with marked success, and now parents consider that no, school is complete without its bank. As an illustration of the practical bene-, fits of this system of collective savings, Miss Lambert relates that the- children of Bordeaux oq one occasion subscribed. the sum of £400 out of their accumulated funds to relieve some sufferers who had been rendered destitute by a flood. The incident goes to show that school savings banks do not make children little misers, »s so many will have it that they do. On the contrary, it is the habit of thrift that alone can give them the wherewithal to be generous. Habit, according to the Duke, of Wellington, is ten times Nature ; and if we are ever to learn how to be thrifty, WK MUST LEARN .THE LESSON WHILE WB ABE YOUNG. In connection with savings banks the writer of the article referred to also supplies some interesting data as to their success in Brazil. It appears that in 1871, through the influence of Viscount Rio Branco, a law was passed enabling slaves to work out their freedom" in a specified uinnber of years, one-half of their wages being deposited in a savings bank for the purpose of their emancipation. The law has proved a salutary one, and by means of it 1,200,000 slaves will obtain tbeir liberty, and with their liberty a valuable instruction as to the power of small savings. The scheme of National ■ Insurauce brought before the House of Representatives in New Zealand by Major Atkinson on July 10, 1882, is an interesting contribution to the subject of cooperative thrift, though it did not become law. The proposals are modifications of, those propounded by the Rev. Mr Bkckley in England, the object being the very highest — namely, to decrease, and if possible exterminate, the evils of improvidence. The scheme was briefly this : rhat every young man and woman should pay info a fund the sum of £41 Is 4d between the ages of 16 and 73, or £41 17s Id between the ages of 18 and 73. If they should begin their payments at 16, they would have to pay at the rate of 2s 3d per week ; and if they should begiu at 18, they would havo to pay a^; the. rate of 3s 3d per week. These amounts would pro- j vide bick pay up to 65 years, and an annuity of j 10s a week after that age until death. As this includes no provision for orphans, to make the Mheinu complete each perscn. would have to make a further payment of about 2s per week, or about £5 a year, for another five years, and {hat would give an orphan benefit of from 15s to 30s a week, according to the size of the family. Thus, to obtaiuthe whole of the benefits, the total payments required from each man aud each woman would be' between £66 and -67, bpread over a period of between 10 and 12 years. An average payment of about 2s a week for 12 years would therefore be sufficient, to wake the requisite provision. If every individual would only exercise that amount of thrift there would be no pauperism.- The sick pay allowed to every unmarried person between the »ges of 18 and 65 years it was proposed should oe not less than 15s a .week, for evevj married man noUess than 22s 6d, and for every married woman 7s 6d. Such was the proposal made by Major Atfeiusori in presenting his scheme to the consideration of the House of, Representatives, and however much we may sympathise with the object he had in view, it is' very apparent that such a hcheme would not work successfully. To begin, the whole tax falls upon the young at that time of their life at which in an especial degree they need their money to give them a f tart in the world. "What shall we do with our boys?" i s a serious enough problem for lathers of families, as things are ; but what would it be with a family of five or six, each taxed at 2s 3d a week, and unable to obtain employment? The measure contains no provision for the relief ' of persona who are thrown out ot employment, which is a frequent source ot destitution iv New Zealand, and there is no emciout fuoc jj U p On malingering. But perhaps

the most serious objection of all is that while the scheme does not go far enough to meet the case of those who are confirmed in drunkenness and improvidence, it does go far enough to give rise to the feeling that self-help is being displaced by State help. Major • Atkinson said very truly thai the measure was merely selfhelp made compulsory to the extent of £60 or £70, but we confess we have not much confidence in the thrift that is practised " on compulsion " and enforced by the taxgatherer. In this matter, as in others, men are to be led and not driven ; they will be thrifty when they wish to be thrifty — and not till then. We come now, at the conclusion of our brief review, to what is perhaps the best instructor of all in this most difficult lesson of thrift. We have considered the importance ok thrift in respect of health, time, and means, thrift in the individual and thrift in the State, and we have seen how many beneficial agencies there are at work teaching us how to economise. There still remains to be considered ' THE BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF HARD TIMKS. "Sweet are the uses of adversity," and very' excellent indeed have been the uses of the last few years. They have taught men that even in this fertile smiling land " wilful waste makes wof ul want," and that greatly as we have been blessed we may, through prodigality and sinfulness, be as greatly cursed. Depressed trade and dull times have reminded us that we must stand true to the old virtues that our fathers learnt by hard experience in their ancient northern home. Those of ub who can carry our recollection back to the dear old mother land know what thrift is there. Let us stroll down one of those green winding English country lanes so dear to memory, and re-visit one of those homely red brick cottages with ivy clinging round its outer walls ; let us note the peace and haopiness, the neatness and cleanliness, the comfor|and contentment of that English home, and then let us reflect upoa the scanty income out of which all this is maintained — an income very much less per annum than our friend the digger's cheque. It seems amazing — scarcely credible — that so much comfort can be maintained with, so little mgney. What magician's wand has made it possible to live thus "passing rich on forty pounds a year"? Not the wand of which we have in New Zealand been heating so much of late : the wand that borrows millions and sends the colony along the road of progress by " leaps and bounds," but the magic wand of Thrift. In those thrifty hemes of England no one is too proud to work, and nothing is wasted ; there is no endeavour to vie in grandeur with richer neighbours; goods are paid for when they are bought ; and as the household cannot afford to dress in the best of material, they contrive to dre6s in the best of taste. And has not someone said— or is the thought our own — that a fine geatleman, like a fine diamond, is best seen in a setting that is not golden ? Yes ; hard times have been to us in New Zealand a baptism of fire, and we shall' not be true to the great traditions of our race if we do not come out of the trial purified. " Hardships " said * a Roman general to his soldiers, " test our best qualities ; it is by good fortune that we are corrupted." By our wonderful good fortune in the past we have been in a measure corrupted ; but the baptism of fire will have brought out one of our best qualities if. it teaches us, as it is doing, the supreme importance of considering little things. JCITTLB THINGS ! Why, life is made up of little things, and is ended by disease germs so infiinitesimally small that it is only by the aid of the microscope that they can be brought within the realm of vision. Principalities are laid waste by little locusts ; the mighty ocean is made up of little drops; and the great universe itself — sun, moon, and stars, earth, air, and sea — is composed of like atoms. Little things ! It is by little impulses toward good, little efforts of otherworldliness, little glimpses of God dimly perceived by our shortsighted earthly eyes, that we are able in our poor little space of anxious self-conscious years to break through the prison walls of self, and attain unto that blissful perfection which Oliver Wendell Holmes in his beautiful poem, "The Chambered Nautilus,"' prefigures : Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, A.B the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past, Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. Till thou at length art freeLeaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. Excels ion.

— Aurelia's Bustle. — Her brother, holding up crinolette: " Aurelia, I have brought you one of the proper articles ; and now 1 would like my Sunday co:it back again.' 1 Observation : Brothers are misfortunes no girl can guaraivfcee being born without, more especially if the brothers be born first.