III—SPENDING-AND GETTING VALUE
I now allude to those financial harassments which have been a marked feature of the home founded and managed by Mr. Smith, who has been eternally worried about money. The children have grown up in this atmosphere of fiscal anxiety, accustomed to the everlasting question whether ends will meet; accustomed to the everlasting debate whether a certain thing can be afforded. And nearly every house in the street where the Smiths live is in the same case.
Why is this? Is it that incomes are lower and commodities and taxes higher in England than in other large European countries? No; the contrary is the fact. In no large European country will money go so far as in England. Is it that the English race is deficient in financial skill? England is the only large European country which genuinely balances its national budget every year and regularly liquidates its debts.
I wish to hint to Mr. Smith that he differs in one very important respect from the Mr. Smith of France, and the Mr. Smith of Germany, his only serious rivals. In the matter of money, he always asks himself, not how little he can spend, but how much he can spend. At the end of a lifetime the result is apparent. Or when he has a daughter to marry off, the result is apparent. In England economy is a virtue. In France, for example, it is merely a habit.