But we have not to deal with the ultimate future,but with the immediate present,and for the evils with which we are dealing the existing cooperative organisations do not and cannot give us much help.
Another--I do not like to call it specific;it is only a name,a mere mockery of a specific--so let me call it another suggestion made when discussing this evil,is Thrift.Thrift is a great virtue no doubt.
But how is Thrift to benefit those who have nothing?What is the use of the gospel of Thrift to a man who had nothing to eat yesterday,and has not threepence to-day to pay for his lodging to-night?To live on nothing a day is difficult enough,but to save on it would beat the cleverest political economist that ever lived.I admit without hesitation that any Scheme which weakened the incentive to Thrift would do harm.But it is a mistake to imagine that social damnation is an incentive to Thrift.It operates least where its force ought to be most felt.There is no fear that any Scheme that we can devise will appreciably diminish the deterrent influences which dispose a man to save.But it is idle wasting time upon a plea that is only brought forward as an excuse for inaction.Thrift is a great virtue,the inculcation of which must be constantly kept in view by all those who are attempting to "educate and save the people.It is not in any sense a specific for the salvation of the lapsed and the lost.Even among the most wretched of the very poor,a man must have an object and a hope before he will save a halfpenny."Let us eat and drink,for to-morrow we perish,"sums up the philosophy of those who have no hope.
In the thriftiness of the French peasant we see that the temptation of eating and drinking is capable of being resolutely subordinated to the superior claims of the accumulation of a dowry for the daughter,or for the acquisition of a little more land for the son.