The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-03-20 00:00:00

CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL THRIFT.

A conference on National Thrift was held on Friday
In last week under the presidency of the Lord Mayor
(Sir Fre. W. Truscott), at the Mansion-house, London.
The large room called the Egyptian-hall was fill4cl in
every part, a large number of both ladies and gentle,
men having to stand throughout the proceedings.
Among those present were the Earl of Derby, Earl
Stanhope, Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Cottesloe, Lord
Norton, Lord Reay, the Lady Mayoress, the Countess
of Airlie, the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley,
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Cardinal Menning, the Hon.
Percy Wyndham, MX., Colonel E. W. Harcourt,
Mr., Mr. Brassey, M.P., Captain Bedford Pim,
M.P., Mr. G. Palmer, M.P.; Sir Charles Trevelyan,
the Hon. R. C. Groevenor, the Hon. N. Waldegrave,
the Hon. Murray Finch-Hatton, the Hon. F. Strutt,
Sir R. Carden, Sir C. M. Browne, Sic Paul Hunter,
General Blunt, Mr. F. D. Mocatta, the Rev, Canon
Wilberforoe, the Rev. W. Rogers, the Roy. W. L.
Blackley, the Rev. R. J. Simpson, Dr. B. W,
Richardson, Mr. "Wyndham S. Portal, Mr. A. E,
Miller, Q.C., Mr. Samuel Smiles, Mr. John Noble,
and Mr. Alderman Figgins.
The Lord Mayor, in opening the proceedings, said
the meeting was called for the purpose of hearing
certain papers read which might or might not lead to
permanent and good results. The main idea of those
who convened the meeting was very strongly in favour
of a course which would be marked out by the various
speakers, and he could only say he was very glad that
the meeting of the other day was adjourned, for they
had now a meeting so exceptionally large and so very
influential that any result arrived at by resolution
would have a very important effect upon the future
promotion of thrift in this kingdom.
Professor Leone Levi, in a thoughtful paper "On
the Margin for Saving," said he believed that the
Income of the bulk of the people, as compared with
their necessary expenditure, was too little to admit of
any considerable savings. Two difficulties, however,
hindered the realization of any well-balanced budget
in the family. The first was the large percentage of
expenditure in drink and tobacco, laid out thought-
lessly and wastefully, often at the expense of solid
food and better houses, and certainly at the cost of
sacrificing every chance of saying. The second was
the ignorance which existed regarding the mutt-
tuents of food, the carelessness in purchasing the
desire for display in dress, and the habit of buying on
credit. We should not, however, be hasty in censuring
the working man whom we found buying a piano' a
sofa, roast beef, or other occasional luxuries, for the
energies put ford in the work of production would be
greatly lessened were there nat as a motive power the
the prospect, not only of sustenance and comfort, but
also of comparative luxury. A special education,
indeed, was required to lay an embargo on the free
vent of human desires, not only from day to day, but
also on special occasions, when temptations were
great. But was sufficient encouragement offered for
saving 1 He was not sure that our savings-bank aided
much lit encouraging accennulation. There was no
reason why the most should not be made of such small
amounts as they were specially designed to receive.
The savings-banks could not give a higher rate of
interest so long as they could only invest their capital
in Console. but many securities giving a higher rate
of interest and quite as safe were now available.
Foreign savings-banks invested in real property, lent
to muneipalitiei, and even discounted bills. Why
fetter the action of British savings-banks unnecessarily
in these respects? If it was expedient to increase the
inducements to saving, it was still more necessary to
remove any hindrance or discouragement to self-
exertion. , To his mind the Poor Law was most
destructive of industry and forethought among the
people. The support of able-bodied labourers by
public rates was necessarily communistic in essence,
and in practice was most mischievous. With regard
to the exercise of thrift, what they lamented was that
those who had not realized anything like a competency
Indulged in luxuries which too often exceeded the
bounds of prudence and duty.
The Rev. R. J. Simpson, in the unavoidable absence
of the author, read a paper by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold
, on "Thrift among the French Peasantry."

a
The Rev. W. L Blackley next read the third paper
"On the Necessity of Practical Education in National
Thrift," and gave instances of the prevalent ignorance
concerning matters connected with thrift, both on
the part of the rich who censured improvidence, and
among the poor who endeavoured at a vast expense of
effort to render themselves independent. Carefully
made calculations showed that the thrifty poor,
besides paying their proportion of compulsory rating
to support the wasteful, actually throw away each
year as much as would pay half the whole poor rate
over :wain (between three and four millions annually)
in ineffectual providence. Mn Bla 31Eley then urged
that the systematic study of this important social
subject should form part of the sehool course in our
national, middle, and higher schools, and intimated
his intention of shortly publishing a thrift and provi-
dence reading book for the upper standards in schools,
explanatory of those points in connexion with saving-
banks in schools and post-offices, sick pay, pensions,
friendly societies, pauperism, and providence with
whale the young ought to be familiar on their entry
into social life. But since theory without practice
was of but little use, he urged that at least a
minimum, of providence, enough to secure each man
against destitution in sickness or old age, should be,
for his own good, exacted from each member of the
community, as it might easily he in early manhood, by
a safe and simple measure ot compulsory insurance.
Dr. W. Richardson's paper on " Thrift in Relation
to Food" was the last read. Economy of food, he
said, must be secured (1) by gieing up the use of sub-
stances used as foods which were not foods, but were
inimical both to health and life: (2) by learning to use
foods as near as possible to their first and cheapest
growth; and (3) by reducing the quantity of food used
to the lowest practical working quantity. Of suppesed
foods to be given up, one article stood out so pro-
minently that the removal of it alone would almost
out;veigh the value of all foreign food supplies at pre-
sent imported. That article was alcohol. With re-
gard to the second point, we must bring ourselves to
use more freely vegetable foods and the fruits of the
earth. After pointing out that the cost of transmuting
vegetable substances into animal flesh would be thus
saved, Dr. Richardson dealt with the question of the
nourishment in such food, anddrew the concluaionfrom
a comparison of the constituents that a large class of
vegetable foods were for solid value incomparably supe-
rior to animal flesh. Peas, beans, rice, oats, barley, and
wheat were of this class It was, however, to be noticed
that many persons would always be found, who in spite
of repugnance or other objection to animal food, would
digest vegetable food that had been prepared for them
by passing through the systems of other animals better
than when they themselves took it at first hand from
the plant. The pulses produced in most persons flatu-
lency and dyspepsia, Oatmeal caused in many per-
sons heat and dryness of the skin, oven when taken
with lime juice or fresh fruit; and other difficulties
could be named which beset the vegetarian path.
These difficulties were not insurmountable, and inquiry
was demanded to discover a means by which changes
analogous to those which vegetable food underwent in
its digestion by the herbivorte and conversion into
animal tissue might be effected by chemical processes.
Believing that by patient, synthetical work in the
laboratory this might be accomplished he looked
forward to the existence of races of men constructed
on better food than had ever yet been prepared
and enjoying a freedom from certain diseases which
must continue to occur so long as other living
bodies were demanded for the reconstruction of the
human body. Lastly, there could be no doubt that
the average amount of food taken by the majority of
persons far exceeded the amount that was really neces-
sary. But to be effective, the example of thrift must
come from those who headed the community, and
especially—he would say it without any thought of
offence—from those in such places as the City of
London. (Hear, hear.) It was at great and wasteful
banquets that the extreme lessons of thriftlessness
which so opposed thrift were set forth and praised and
practised,
commenceandit
.(Laughter
was i the e e centresau d the grand d re f reform
shouldhear,")
When, many years ago, at Wolverhampton, he had
asked some colliers why they spent their hard-earned
wages in what they caned "pleay "—which meant the
living for one day in the week on the choicest viands
that could be got—one of these grimy epicures replied,
" Gie up pleay, measter ! why, it's only a feaest bike
a Lord Mayor's dinner if ye've iver been at an. When
us batten gie up pleay, tell us, an we wull," Now,
Dr. Richardson said, amid renewed laughter and
cheering, that he took it as one of the most hopeful
signs of thrift ever known that through the liberal-
mindedness and the earnest desire of the City's first
magistrate for the public good, the moral this incident
so forcibly conveyed should be at last with the per-
mission of a Lord Mayor zepeated wii,hin the banquet-
ing hall of the Mansion-house.
Tha Earl of Derby, who was received with loud
cheers on rising, said :—Mr Chairman, Ladies, and
Gentlemen,—Perhape if we had been able to forecast
the future, and had known in what stirring times our
meeting WAS to be held, we should either have ad-
vanced or postponed it a little in point of time; for
this is not the most favourable moment to call atten-
tion to topic's which are unexciting in their nature, and
which have nothing to do with what are commonly
called politics, though they have a great deal to do with
public policy. But we are here acd we have at least
the satisfaction of knowing, unlike a good many other
people who are very active just now, that in the
cause in which we are engaged we have neither dis-
appointment or defeat to fear. (Hear, hear,) There
are two questions which everybody who attends a
meeting like this bee to ask himself—first is there any
eeceEsity for it? Next, is it likely to lead to any
useful result, or, putting the matter in other words, is
there any reason, why anything should be done, and if
so are we doing the right thing? Now, as to the first
of these questione I think there is not likely to be
any difference of opinion among us. I suppose
we may take it as an accepted fact that improvi-
dence, like intemperance, is a characteristic defect
of the English nation, looked at as a whole. (Hear,
bean) Or, if you choose to take a more optimist
view, I will modify the expression and say only that
in both respects our theory of life, our judgment
of what ought to be, is ahead of our actual practice.
Spealdng generally, I should imagine that in regard
to thrift as in many other matters the middle clams
comes out best. Men in high positions are not gener-
ally frugal, for various reasons, partly because the
necessity is not impressed upon them by the outward
circumstances of their lives, partly because a certain
external display is supposed to be necessary to the
maintenance of social status and partly also because
they are continually surrounded by persons whose in-
terest it is that they should spend freely, and it is
only on that condition that they enjoy the social popu-
larity which is the object of many men's livee. In the
poorer class frugality is deficient, but from a different
set of causes, In the first place, there is sheer
ignorance. In these rapid-days we are apt to forget
k
that a working class able to read and write is a
creation of our own times (hear, hear), that the
Bobooi end the savings bank are, in fact, co-
iist Tao n
faor-
ir
n temporar'es' Next, you have the obvious fact that
to
a mananwdhowahe
oisdeeasare pleasuresfe w
a, r we hos°
restricted,
Moult to refuse himself the simple luxuries
him constitute extravagance, than for those
differently circumstanced to curtail superfluities which
perhaps they
two
horioceuhe 0 r
do not really enjoy. And thirdly, lam
afraid we cannot deny that the influence of the Poor
Law has in this matter been injurione. (aims. hear.)
I must so frankly that while I listened with the