The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-01-27
Words to the Point.

VOrOS UO Uuc fOluCs
In giving expression to a few thoughts
on the financial distress of the country,
an American philosopher says:
There seems to be no fixed standard
of human wants, no measurable and
constant sum of work to he done, or of
products that must be created and ex-
changed. So many of the articles that
give activity to trade and commerce are
luxuries and not necessaries. that de.
cline in the use of things that are rot
indispensable, throws a large class of
operatives out of employment and par
alyzes important branches of commerce.
Even tea anAcoffee are not necessaries
of life, much less silk goods. The de-
cline of the opium or the tobacco trade,
fatal as it would prove to so much cap
ital. would be glorious proof of the
emancipation Of the world from iljuri-
Gus luxuries, and the failure of the COM
merce in alcohol in all its forms would
create great business disasters, with I'M
mense profit to the intellectual and
moral happiness Of the world. 1t is pos
sible that the standard of external lux
ury-we do not say comfort, for com.
ort often flies at luxury's approach
may have been so generally heightened
all over the world, by the extracrdi-
uary stimulus of modern triumphs in
machinery ana locomotIon, that the
taste for unnecessary things has become
stronger than the actual needs of the
world will bear. People must have
bread and clothing, fuel aud shelter, and
it they sre led by custom and taste TO
lexpend in the ornamental aud facritivus
part of living what is required to meet
actual wants, they will, OF course, SOON
er or later, exhaust all their reserves and
come to actual want. That an immense
demand for things not necessary has ex-
isted all over the civilized world for a
generation past, cannot be denied. The
standard of domestic comfort has gone
up to the point of general luxury. Prin-
ces did not have, hundred years ago,
many of the things now falsely classed
among the nccessaries Of lite b. peo-
pIe in middle-class circumstances. Can
this standard be maintaineds Luxuri-
Gus classes have always existed, and
might be sustained by come special sac
rifices exacted from the mass Of hard
working and self-denying people. But
can luxury be the rule, aud be kept up
| by the majority of people, without tend
| ing to derAnge aud destroy the condi
tions Of industry, aud finally of prosper
ous trade aud commerce? What is the
effect OF tastes refined beyond the con-
dition in which our lot has fallen, but
to make honest daily labor repulsive,
plain food unwelcome. and simple furni-
ture offensive: Let any one look at the
carpets, the china and glassware. the
silver plate, the clothing, the laces and
ribbons, the mirrors and mantels, the
finish ct tools. the triumphs OF loom and
press, with which our great Exposition
abounded, and regard them a. the meas
ure of the world's taste for comfort and
luxury at this date, and then reflect
that while it is triumphantly going on,
and stimulating more activity and .
finer and higher standard of skill and
luxury, there is great cry echoing from
nation to nation Of depressed trade, di-
miniehed commerce, strikes among
skilled laborrrs, aud famine among the
poor, and ask himself how the two
things hang together, or what mutual
dependence they have on each other.
The world is living too fast, indulg-
ing too many extravagant tastes, saw
ing nothing. using up its old savings,
| and 10 now ut the end Of its purse.
Meanwhile, the manufacturers are try
| ing to stimulate it, exhausted powera
| BY new arti6cee- --6ner patterns, hand.
somer patterns, mnre elegant carriages,
carpets and candelabrA. 1t 10 all in
vain! A halt. generation may 20 on
spending the fortune inherited from Sav-
ing rfogenitors, leaving poverty to its
heirs, upon the present ruincss fashion
Ba, i l. only the people Who posess Ia.
heri,ed property, q credit, that ca
mach longer DO this. Ths greet nasa
] e pooplo accas>o0oo - Iuxuy havl