The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-09-18 00:00:00

THE DUTY TO SAVE MONEY.

For anything I can see it is likely to continue the fact, that
sun is the relation-between the supply and demand for
labour in our diaricts and in most of the manufacturing dia-
lects in the kingdom, that whatever may be the depression
of trade, working people are likely to continue to receive
very fair employment. (Cheers.) Well, if that be the case, is
any working man for a Moment to be excused it he does not
provide net merely- against sickness and doctoring, but
.against old ace; and I hope that none of you will go away
without feeling that at least is your duty, and that it is also
your duty to try to get all your fellow workpeople to do the
same. Ido not want it to be supposed that in making these
remarks I am one of those who think that the hard-work-
bag class throughout the country I mean the class
who earn their bread by manual labour—are, as com-
pared with other people, an extravagant and non-saving class.
I do not believe it. (Cheers.) I believe they will stand
comparison with any class except what we may call the
capitalist class,—manufacturers, bankers, men of business—
who, if they did not make it their rule to save money, or to
try to save money, would go into the Gazette a great deal
faster than they go. It is the business of men of business to
save money. England is the richest country in the world,
and the country in which there is the greatest amount of
saved capital. Yet this I believe also to be true, that with
the exception of the men of business—l am not talking of
the working classes, but the class which in the common run
of life ranks above the working classes—l believe there is
no country in which they save so little. I believe there is
no country in which professional men save less than in Eng-
land. I don't mean to say that the working classes save as
much as they ought, but I. think they will stand comparison
with other classes in the country, and it would be a very
sorrowful thing if they did not. This is a very great country,
the forces at work for goad and for evil are very strong and
numerous, and a man, according as he looks on one side of
the picture or on the other, may be very hopeful or very
melancholy. If he chooses to look at the melancholy side
and to look at the amount of pauperism which still exists in
this country in •spite of the good employment we have had
for some time past, in spite of the wealth of the capitalist, I
say that alone should mAke him very sorry. 11 we look at
the drunkenness, at the vice, and at the misery which flows
from this drunkenntss and vice, we are made even still more
'sorry. But then, having done that, we must look at the
bright side, and we look round and see societies like this, in
which the wosking men are doing their very best to help
themselves; we see other societies—co-operative societies,
saving clubs, and building societies—in which the working
men are investing their friTillgS, and we 'feel that there are
great things at work, and if we look solely at them we should
have nothing but hope in our minds ; but ills my fate rather
to hear the black side, and to have to deal with the dark and
gloomy side in these matters, because I am sent to that body
of people in London whose duty it is to do what they can to
mend matters. .We have tc :meddle as much as we possibly
can with what is bad, and therefore it is our business to look
at 'what is bad; and the amount of pauperism which still
exists, and the causes of pauperism, are things which we are
bound to regard most carefully.