The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, MAY 18, 18S2. Thrift.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 639, 18 May 1882, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, MAY 18, 18S2. Thrift.

TOWN EDITION. [lssued at 4.40 *>. m. j

The extravagance and improvidence of the average colonial of the Australasias has often served as the text of newspaper articles in both this and the neighboring colonies, and, wellborn as the subject’ undoubtedly has been, it is a matter which cannot be too plainly placed before the working man—and women, too, for the matter of that. We believe that the period of depression through which the various colonies have recently passed has to a very great extent acted as a salutary lesson to the working people of these islands. The various savings bank returns prove that

the busy workers in the colonial hive are placing greater value on their nioney than they did before the pinch of the “ hard times ” came. It is not, as it was prior to 1879, a case of “ easy got, and easy gone.” Working men have had to submit to a pretty appreciable reduction in their weekly earnings, and, as a consequence, they have been, taught the value of the little, comparatively speaking, which they now receive as an equivalent for their labor. The extravagance we have spoken of may no doubt be traced to many causes. The absence of home comforts and home ties no doubt led many to seek companionship in the billiard-room and bar-parlour. Then there was the high wages which they were able to earn here, as compared with those which they received in the Home country, and which tended little to encourage habits of thrift. And in the case of the younger male members of the great colonial family there was the dearth of young marriageable women with whom they could cast in their lot, and thus have a further inducement,. to habits of frugality. But it is no use crying over spilt milk, and if the lesson which has been taught to the working classes is well taken to heart, the medium by which that instruction was imparted, no matter how bitter the course of instruction may have been, is of little moment. If it is as we venture to hope with regard to the beneficial effects of the recent depression, and the lesson of laying by for a rainy day has been well and thoroughly learned, it is to be presumed that heads of families will endeavor to inculcate saving habits in the younger members of their families. And to this end they have ample facilities in New Zealand. There is the Government Savings Bank, which affords every opportunity to the school children of the colony to put by the spare pence bestowed upon them by their friends. Then we have the “ industrial branch ” of the Government Life Assurance Department, new regulations for the com duct of which recently appeared in the Gazette. Under these newly framed regulations the life of a child three months old may be insured, by the payment of 2d. per week, a sum, we should think, well within the reach of every working man in the community, even though he may be blessed with a more than ordinary large number of olive ' branches. In the case of a child being insured at the age and for the sum we have named, and dying at thirteen years old, the amount received by its parents would be This is a matter which should receive the attention of every parent in the country. . Of course the payment is by no means limited to 2d per week, that is the minimum, and may be increased at the will of the insurer. We only mention this sura ay showing the small amount of self-denial necessary on the part of bread-winners to set an example of thriftiness to their * offspring—an example which, cannot but have a . beneficial influence on the youthful mind. •If the demagogues who delight to pose as the friends; of the working man were to devote their attention to placing this matter plainly before the objects of their solicitude, they would be doing some good to the “’orny’anded.” But this is about the last thing your average stump orator would think of doing. He would rather delude the working man by telling him, inferentially, at all events, that all his hearers have to do is to return him to Parliament, and straightway their wages will be raised—ra “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work being a favorite piece of clap-trap qf the genus demagogue. Let the working man disabuse his mind of the notion that any political quack , can raise the rate of wages here or elsewhere; on the contrary, wages are more likely to the lowered if the pot house politician gets an opportunity to set class against class, as we have frequently pointed out. No, let the working; man make the most of the wages he at present obtains, and by the exercise of a little self denial lay by .a nest egg against the day when sickness and death may come, and if he should be called away ere his children are able to take their part in life’s great battle, his ending will be none the less easy from the consciousness that the dear ones he is leaving are not dependent upon the charily of his more careful and thirfty neighbors. There is ho help like self help. The “ working man ” is in need of no assistance at the hands of the political loafers who pretend to make his cause their care, to gain their own selfish ends. If the working man only will, he is at least as well able to lay by money in these colonies and become independent, as the people who profess to take such a violent interest in him on the eve of an election.