Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1881-03-18
French Thrift.
From the Saturday Reyiew.l

lrIoM inc StluIuaN heNitM-i
Nearly every one in France saves mon
ey, and, as consequence of this, nearly
every one in France has an income apart
from the income which he makes from
his labor. In England men lay by fol
old age They look forward to time
when they will have to leave off work, and
when their ability TO do what they wish
will be determined by their previous
economies. The Frenchman seems to
stand in no need Of any such stimulus.
If his maintenance in old age were assur,
ed three times over, he would still so Oh
saving. The TincS'S correspondent men
tions an instance of this habit which Is
almost beyond belief, or rather would be
SO If it were anything more than an un-
usually striking example of a universal ten
dency.
| He knows, he saws, head servant in
| private house in Paris who has savel
enough to bring him in f7O0 year. As
the period of saving was limited to twen-
| ty five years, this implies an annual lay
Ing by of something like f20O at five per
centum, compound interest, which for an
honest servant in private house seems
impossible. We are told, however, that
III order to achieve his savings, whatever
they were, he denied himself everything
that he would have had to pay for ont of
his own pocket With the tastes thus
formed he might long ago have left ser
vice and lived on his income. InStead of
this he has remained in service in order
to go on saving, If he had lived on his
income there would have been nothing
out of which to lay by. The great pleas
ure of his life wonld thus have disappear
ed. Instead of looking with continually
growing enjoyment on his continually
growing store, he would have seen the
store remain the same, and have had only
the satisfaction of living on the income of
it. To man with whom thrift has be-
come second nature this would be pain
rather than enjoyment. He would have
been thinking as he spent each penny
that if he had only remained in service
there would have been no need to spend
anything.
Mr.. Hamerton has mentioned cases in
which Frenchmen possessed of fair in
comes from accumulated capital have
gone on doing with perfect contentment
work which was at once irksome and i'll
pain, because the money thus gained was
so much more to be laid by. The process
in France is n never-ending one The
more Frenchman saves the more he |
feels that he may save. Parents save for |
their children, and children save for them
selves till they become parents in their
turn. Every child's future is provided
for at his CRADLE" for "the baby has
hardly seen the daylight before the par
ents are already saving for him." But |
the fact that his future is provided for
does not make the child Indifferent to his
own future. He provides for himself as
though he had had no parents to spare
him the trouble.
No doubt there is bad side to all this.
The intense devotion TO small economies
develops type of character which, in the
end. is not altogether favorable even to
that national prosperity which, in the
beginning, it does SD much to promote.
The absorption of the mind in the pro-
cess of putting together money, which re-
CARDS it as an end rather than as a means,
does not leave much room for the quail
ties which make nations great. 1t may
even tend To make the amount of money
made in the country less that it would be
f there were not so much money saved.
The ship may be spoiled for want of
of tar, whether the penny
which ought to have gone in the purchase
s squandered or boarded. Nothing is
more ungrateful to the economical man
han the notion of risk, for risk means not
'nly that others may be nothing more TO
ldd to the heap, but that something may
lave to be taken away from it. Yetwith-
'ut risk great commercial enterprises are
impossible. If high interest means bad
ecurity, it is equally true that perfect
ecurity means investment in established
not in undertakings that
ave their fortunes to make.