Thus, when a population is thoughtless and improvident, no kind of material prosperity will benefit them. Unless they exercise forethought and economy, they will alternately be in a state of "hunger and burst." When trade falls off, as it usually does after exceptional prosperity, they will not be comforted by the thought of what they might have saved, had it ever occurred to them that the "prosperous times" might not have proved permanent.
During prosperous times, Saint Monday is regularly observed. The Bank Holiday is repeated weekly. "Where are all the workmen?" said a master to his foreman on going the rounds among his builders—this work must be pushed on and covered in while the fine weather lasts." "Why, sir," said the foreman, "this is Monday; and they have not spent all their money yet." Dean Boyd, preaching at Exeter on behalf of the Devonshire hospitals, expressed his belief that the annual loss to the workpeople engaged in the woollen manufacture, the cotton trade, the bricklaying and building trade, by Idle Monday, amounted to over seven millions sterling. If man's chief end were to manufacture cloth, silk, cotton, hardware, toys, and china; to buy in the cheapest market, and to sell in the dearest; to cultivate land, grow corn, and graze cattle; to live for mere money profit, and hoard or spend, as the case might be, we might then congratulate ourselves upon our National Prosperity. But is this the chief end of man? Has he not faculties, affections, and sympathies, besides muscular organs? Has not his mind and heart certain claims, as well as his mouth and his back? Has he not a soul as well as a stomach? And ought not "prosperity" to include the improvement and well-being of his morals and intellect as well as of his bones and muscles?
Mere money is no indication of prosperity. A man's nature may remain the same. It may even grow more stunted and deformed, while he is doubling his expenditure, or adding cent, per cent, to his hoards yearly. It is the same with the mass. The increase of their gains may merely furnish them with increased means for gratifying animal indulgences, unless their moral character keeps pace with their physical advancement. Double the gains of an uneducated, overworked man, in a time of prosperity, and what is the result? Simply that you have furnished him with the means of eating and drinking more! Thus, not even the material well-being of the population is secured by that condition of things which is defined by political economists as "National Prosperity." And so long as the moral elements of the question are ignored, this kind of "prosperity" is, we believe, calculated to produce far more mischievous results than good. It is knowledge and virtue alone that can confer dignity on a man's life; and the growth of such qualities in a nation are the only true marks of its real prosperity; not the infinite manufacture and sale of cotton prints, toys, hardware, and crockery. The Bishop of Manchester, when preaching at a harvest thanksgiving near Preston, referred to a letter which he had received from a clergyman in the south of England, who, after expressing his pleasure at the fact that the agricultural labourers were receiving higher wages, lamented "that at present the only result he could discover from their higher wages was that a great deal more beer was consumed. If this was the use we were making of this prosperity, we could hardly call it a blessing for which we had a right or ground to thank God. The true prosperity of the nation consisted not so much in the fact that the nation was growing in wealth—though wealth was a necessary attribute of prosperity—but that it was growing in virtue; and that there was a more equable distribution of comfort, contentment, and the things of this lower world."
In making the preceding observations we do not in the least advocate the formation of miserly, penurious habits; for we hate the scrub, the screw, the miser. All that we contend for is, that man should provide for the future—that they should provide during good times for the bad times which almost invariably follow them—that they should lay by a store of savings as a breakwater against want, and make sure of a little fund which may maintain them in old age, secure their self-respect, and add to their personal comfort and social well-being. Thrift is not in any way connected with avarice, usury, greed, or selfishness. It is, in fact, the very reverse of these disgusting dispositions.
It means economy for the purpose of securing independence. Thrift requires that money should be used and not abused—that it should be honestly earned and economically employed—
"Not for to put it in a hedge,
Not for a train attendent—
But for the glorious privilege
Of being Independent."
CHAPTER III.
IMPROVIDENCE.
"The man who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune."—Lord Bacon.
"In all conditions and circumstances, well-being is in the power of those who have power over themselves."—J.J. Gurney.
"Where is their common sense? Alas, what imprudence! Early marriages; many children; poor-rates, and the workhouse. … They are born; they are wretched; they die. … In no foreign country of far less civilization than England, is there the same improvidence."—Lord Lytton.
"No man oppresses thee, O free and independent franchiser; but does not this stupid pewter pot oppress thee? No son of Adam can bid thee come or go, but this absurd pot of heavy-wet can and does, Thou art the thrall, not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites, and this accursed dish of liquor. And thou pratest of thy 'liberty,' thou entire blockhead!"—Carlyle.
"Never did any publike misery
Rise of it selfe; God's plagues still grounded are
On common staines of our Humanity:
And to the flame, which ruineth Mankind,
Man gives the matter, or at least gives winde."—Daniell.
England is one of the richest countries in the world. Our merchants are enterprising, our manufacturers are industrious, our labourers are hard-working. There is an accumulation of wealth in the country to which past times can offer no parallel. The Bank is gorged with gold. There never was more food in the empire; there never was more money. There is no end to our manufacturing productions, for the steam-engine never tires. And yet notwithstanding all this wealth, there is an enormous mass of poverty. Close alongside the Wealth of Nations, there gloomily stalks the Misery of Nations—luxurious ease resting upon a dark background of wretchedness.
Parliamentary reports have again and again revealed to us the miseries endured by certain portions of our working population. They have described the people employed in factories, workshops, mines, and brickfields, as well as in the pursuits of country life. We have tried to grapple with the evils of their condition by legislation, but it seems to mock us. Those who sink into poverty are fed, but they remain paupers. Those who feed them, feel no compassion; and those who are fed, return no gratitude. There is no bond of sympathy between the givers and the receivers. Thus the Haves and the Have-nots, the opulent and the indigent, stand at the two extremes of the social scale, and a wide gulf is fixed between them.
Among rude and savage people, the condition of poverty is uniform. Provided the bare appetites are satisfied, suffering is scarcely felt. Where slavery exists, indigence is little known; for it is the master's interest to keep the slave in a condition fit for labour, and the employer generally takes care to supply the animal wants of the employed. It is only when society becomes civilized and free, and man enters into competition with his fellows, that he becomes exposed to indigence, and experiences social misery. Where civilization, as in this country, has reached its highest point, and where large accumulations of wealth have been made, the misery of the indigent classes is only rendered more acute by the comfort and luxury with which it is placed in immediate contrast.
Much of the existing misery is caused by selfishness—by the greed to accumulate wealth on the one hand, and by improvidence on the other. Accumulation of money has become the great desire and passion of the age. The wealth of nations, and not the happiness of nations, is the principal