Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-08-03
VARS LESSON IN THRIFT.
British People Must Save Great Sum
to Make Good the Waste.

WARS LESSON IN THRIFT.
British People Must Save Great Sum
to Make Good the Waste.
British statesmen have been anxiously
exhorting the public to save. The war
obliges the government to borrow at
the rate of more than five billions a
wear. whereas the amount Of capital
saved by the British people for invest
ment in securities of all kinds had been
in normal time only n n one-half
to two billions a year. How, asked
Premier Asquith, in a recent speech In
Guildhall, could a people suddenly and
enormously increase their power OF
expenditure, especially as the great
emergency which made it necessary for
the government to borrow heavily was
at the same time operating to derange
finance, commerce and industry? He
considered the possibilities Of borrow
ing abroad and found that the amount
of capital available abroad would be al
most insignificant in proportion to the
amount required. He dismissed also
the preposterous thought that Great
Britain could liquidate her enormous
foreign investments, amounting per-
haps to twenty billion dollars-capital
employed all over the world in every
kind Of wealth producing enterprise.
The rate at which fixed capital can
be liquidated is after all very limited.
AS the rate Of interest rises in Europe
holders Of American bonds and shares
that yield less will sell them and REIN
vest the proceeds in war loans. That
takes place automatically and slowly.
But If Great Britain undertook con-
certedly and by wholesale to convert
her foreign Investments into liquid
capital, that is, into money or war
goods, she would cause the world to
suspend payment. She would not get
the money and she would stop the sup
ply Of goods. She is in the position Of
a person who, as an investor, owns the
bonds of a great department store and
who, in spite Of that fact, Is obliged to
pay cash over the counter for goods,
Just as any other customer does. II the
owner of the bonds and shares Of a
department store would propose to
take the goods off the shelves Of the
store without paying for them, that
would end the business and destroy the
earning power Of their W capital.
That is England's position. She has
tremendous investments in the means
Of the world for producing and distrib-
uting goods, but as a Of these
goods she must pay for them, as every
body else does, in other goods, In credit
or in money. Ordinarily she pays In
goods. But now the account is rum
ming more heavily against her than at
any time in her economic history. She
is buying from the world on account
of the war, two or three billion dollars
worth of goods more than she is able
to sell to the world in spite Of the war,
and the state Of the trade balance be-
tween England and the other countries,
as Mr.. Asquith said, affords grounds
perhaps not for anxiety, but for seri-
Gus thought.
The miracle to be performed is that
a people who normally save only one
and one-half to two billions a year
shall find five or six billions a year to
lend to their government for wGr. Mr..
Asquith could only see n way. There
is but one way. After having borrowed
what they can abroad, the British peo-
pie must ave the rest. Therefore, as
Mr.. Asquith said, the people must d.
minish their expenditures, from the rich
who should dispense with man SER
wants and other forms of luxury, down
to the very poor. Everybody "a save
something.
Now abruptly the government gets
back it's own advice. The virtue Of
thrift can be practiced by a govern
ment as well as by its subjects. In the
house Of lords Viscount Middleton has
moved a resolution that the govern
ment should take immediate steps to
reduce the civil expenditures Of the
government, which in 20 years have in
creased from n billion to three billion
dollars annually. Civil expenditures
embrace the cos Of old age pensions.
unemployment insurance, labor ex-
| changes, social uplift, education and
administration. The resolution was
adopted, after efficient" had been sub
| stituted for Immediate" and the pur-
pose at least was served that the gov
eminent was put on notice to set an
example in thrift.
Never was the necessity for saving
so great, so imperative and relentless
fact, no less important than valor;
and never perhaps in a thousand years
was thrift less fashionable in the world
than in the years just preceding the
war. Individuals, corporations and
governments were all eXtravagant.
Private and public expenditures were
limited only by the means, and as the
means were enormously greater than
ever before in the worlds history, and
multiplied faster, expenditures may be
said to have been until now unlimited.
There is almost no measure Of what
people can save, that is, do without.
when they begin to try. Tina is be-
cause they have w tried since the
present standards Of production were
set. The British people may be able
to double, ever to treble, the difference
between what they consume and what
they produce. That is capital. 1t is
perfectly feasible. Any prosperous
people could do it under sufficient in
centive, because in normal times the
percentage of production saved is very
small. An overwhelming majority of
the people in his world still consume
all they produce from years end to
years end, and in Great Britain they
had got into the habit of consuming
more and looking to the government
for the rest.-New York Times.
In a kite frame patented by a Wis