French & English

Thrift is classed as a social virtue, because in a thrifty society few people fall upon others for their support. The thrifty man looks to his own independence during sickness, and to that of his wife and children after his death, so that he is never burdensome either to public or private charity.

Socially, then, the thrifty man is an acceptable member of the community; but when we inquire closely into the nature of thrift we often find it associated with meanness, and therefore the esteem for it has never been quite without reserve.

To apply this to the English and French, I may begin by admitting, quite frankly, that the French are incomparably superior to the English in thrift. The natural talent for thrift is far commoner in France than in England. The French are prudent as a rule, and very capable of limiting their desires; they have also a great love of independence, a horror of debt, a readiness to accept and avow a modest social position, and they have (in spite of apparent frivolity) a foresight that looks a long way into the future. That is the good side of the French character as regards thrift, but there is a bad side at least equally favourable to it. There is a pettiness in the French mind which adapts it well for dealing with details, and gives it a keen zest for very small economies. An Englishman is astonished by nothing so much as this pettiness when he first knows the French as they really are, and begins to perceive what close and earnest attention they will give to what seem to him ridiculously small matters. In many French people, I do not say in all, there is something worse than pettiness, namely, downright meanness, and this too is highly favourable to thrift. This meanness is not confined to the poorer classes, or to the bourgeoisie, it may be found in all classes.

In England the qualities and the defects which are favourable to thrift are much rarer. The English are not so prudent as the French, not so capable of limiting their desires, not so ready to accept humble positions contentedly, and if they have foresight they too often find reasons for not acting according to its dictates. But, on the other hand, the English have a hearty contempt for pettiness. An Englishman who is mean is a very rare exception. The English nature finds no satisfaction in paying less for anything than it is really worth; it does not wish to pay more, but in consideration for its own self-respect it wishes to give the full value.

A further examination of the conduct of thrifty people leads to the conclusion that thrift may be either self-denying or denying to other people. A man has a family; he feeds himself luxuriously and his family as poorly as possible; at the year’s end he will have saved more than if he had lived on potatoes and kept his family well. In large families thrift often means refusing things to the wife and children whilst the master is self-indulgent, like the Sultan of Turkey, who wallows in luxury whilst his ragged soldiers starve. The commonest English form of this selfishness is to spend in drink whilst denying necessaries to the children; but this is not thrift, as there are no savings.

Thrift may be one of the noblest forms of altruism. I know all the details about a very pretty instance that occurred in England two generations before mine. A lady, well-to-do and childless, had three little penniless nieces. By pure self-denial she saved three fortunes for them, enough to keep them in comfort all their days. This self-denial was all the harder in her case that she belonged to an aristocratic family, and might have excusably spent her income for the maintenance of her rank.

The strongest motive for French thrift is to provide dowries for daughters. It being an accepted rule that every girl must have a dowry, a Frenchman is not discouraged by the smallness of the sum he is able to put by. This enables him to begin, and if a little prosperity comes to him it is a satisfaction to make the dowry larger. Whilst saving the dowry he learns the art of saving, and applies it afterwards to other purposes.

In England there are two terrible discouragements to saving. The first is the exacting character of English opinion with regard to style of living, the contempt felt for people who are not gentlemen and ladies, and the vulgar belief that one cannot be a gentleman or a lady without leading an expensive life. “It costs a great deal of money to be a gentleman,” says an English writer, “and a great deal more to be a lady.” Well, if this is so, why not leave gentlemanhood and ladyhood to rich people, and why not be content with simple manhood and womanhood? Nothing can be more admirable than the life of an Englishman who saves money from a sense of duty when the saving implies the great renunciation, the renunciation of the title of “gentleman.” A Frenchman, who may live as he likes, knows nothing of that sacrifice.

The second great discouragement to saving in England is the English contempt for small sums of money. “The Englishman,” says Bagehot, “bows down before a great heap and sneers when he passes a little heap.” The sneer is perhaps more frequent than the bow. The mention of a small fortune often excites a smile. And the heap need not be a very little one to be sneered at. You may be almost ridiculous for having an income that places you far above want. Three hundred a year is an income that seems really amusing to the well-constituted English mind. I myself have heard a man with five hundred a year called a “beggar,” and have seen people smile good-humouredly at more than twice as much. The consequence is that unless an Englishman has the natural instinct of avarice he may think, “What is the good of saving when all I can put by will only be contemptible?”

It is worth noting, as a contrast, that the idea of thrift has not always been general in France. The present French rural aristocracy is thrifty; but the old ideal of a French nobleman included largeness and even prodigality in money matters, which led to the ruin of many a noble house. To be careful and exact was, in the old days, a middle-class virtue, the consequence being that there are so many nouveaux riches in France at the present day. Even now it is not thought well to be too thrifty in high situations. That was President Grévy’s fault; President Carnot saves nothing out of his allowance, and is liked for it. The millions claimed by the Orleans family seemed to them a good kind of ballast in troubled waters, but they sank the royal ship.

The following may be taken as a rather extreme example of French carefulness. I knew an old bachelor who had £800 a year and not at all an ungenerous disposition, but he enjoyed making little savings. He drove frequently to the neighbouring town, and was quite delighted with an arrangement he made there, by which he was allowed to put up his pony for a penny a time on condition that he harnessed it himself and that the animal had nothing to eat. The pony was avenged by the old gentleman’s cook, who was thriftier even than her master, and kept him on short commons.

The spirit of small economies may take a character of positive meanness. Servants may be, and sometimes are, so wretchedly fed that they will not stay in the place. Relations, as eating beings, may be so inhospitably received that they finally cease their visits. All hospitality may come to an end, invitations being declined in dread of the obligation of reciprocity, till at last the thrifty household realises its perfect ideal of spending nothing on anybody. French tradesmen are well acquainted with this class of customers, who are incessantly trying to get something out of them. The ingenuity of such customers goes beyond anything that would be believed in England. French novelists sometimes amuse themselves by depicting the petty craft of the meanest natures. The novelists cannot go beyond the truth, with all their inventiveness.

As a contrast to this you have English improvidence, especially in the genteel professional class, where the whole energy of the master of the house is devoted to earning fairy gold, the gold that immediately vanishes. He spends that he may succeed and succeeds that he may spend. He brings up a family with genteel habits and no capital. Apparently prosperous and enviable, he enjoys in reality nothing that prosperity ought to give, since he has neither leisure to think, nor liberty, nor peace of mind, nor any hope of rest except in the grave.[53]

The final results of French thrift, for the nation, are as follows:—

1. The poorer classes are better fed and better clothed. This is a real good, because they needed it. They are probably stronger than they used to be.

2. The idle class is constantly increasing in numbers, not because it is prolific, but by the accession of nouveaux riches. This is not perceptibly a benefit.

3. The extreme spirit of thrift will not allow population to increase with riches. It operates as a powerful restraint on procreation even in wealthy families. This weakens France relatively to England and Germany.

4. Thrift has produced wealth, wealth luxury, and luxury also acts as a restraint on population, because, in a luxurious age, children are too expensive.

5. As for national defence, the wealth of France is of use for all material things, such as ships, fortresses, and guns, but by increasing the love of comfort and commerce it has enfeebled the warlike temper of the nation.

6. As the wealth of France continually increases, and her defenders do not increase with it, she becomes every year a more tempting prize for an enemy.