Chapter LXXX: Section CCXXII: Spendthrift Nations

As there are extravagant and frugal individuals, so also are there extravagant and frugal nations. Thus, for instance, we must ascribe great national frugality to the Swiss. In many well-to-do families in that country, it is a principle acted upon to require the daughters to look to the results of their white sewing, instead of giving them pin-money; to gather up the crumbs after coffee parties in the presence of the guests, and to make soup of them afterwards, etc. Sons are generally neither supported nor helped to any great extent by their parents in their lifetime, and are required to found their own homes. They, therefore, grow rich from inheritance only late in years, when they are accustomed to a retired and modest mode of life, and have little desire, from mere convenience sake, to change it for another. And so Temple informs us that it never occurs to the Dutch that their outlay should equal their income; and when this is the case they consider that they have spent the year in vain. Such a mode of life would cost a man his reputation there as much as vicious excess does in other countries. The greatest order and the most accurate calculation of all outlay in advance is found in union with this; so that Temple assures us he never heard of a public or private building which was not finished at the time stipulated for in advance.[222-1]

On the other hand, the Englishman lives rather luxuriantly. He is so used to enjoying comparative abundance, that when English travelers see the peasantry of the continent living in great frugality, they generally attribute it to poverty and not to their disposition to make savings. If England has grown rich, it is because of the colossal magnitude of its production, which is still more luxuriant and abundant than its consumption.[222-2] This contrast may be the effect in part of nationality and climate;[222-3] but it is certainly the effect in part also of a difference in the stage of civilization which these countries have respectively reached. The elder Cato had a maxim that a widow might, indeed, allow her fortune to diminish, but that it was a man's duty to leave more behind him than he had inherited.[222-4] And how prodigally did not the lords of the universe live in later times!

[Footnote 222-1: _Temple_, Observations on the U. Provinces,
Works, I, 136, 138 seq., 179. _Roscher_, Geschichte der
engl. Volkswirthschaftsl., 129. Thus, for instance, the
Richesse de Hollande, I, 305, describes a rich town near
Amsterdam in which a man with an income of 120,000 florins a
year expended probably only 1,000 florins per annum on
himself.]

[Footnote 222-2: As early a writer as _D. Defoe_, Giving
Alms no Charity! 1704, says: the English get estates; the
Dutch save them. An Englishman at that time with weekly
wages of 20 shillings just made ends meet; while a Dutchman
with the same grew rich, and left his children behind him in
very prosperous circumstances, etc. _L. Faucher_ draws a
similar contrast between his fellow countrymen and the
English. _Goethe's_ ingenuous observations (Werke, Bd., 23,
246, ed. of 1840) in his Italian journey, show that the
Italians, too, know how to save. _Molti pochi fanno un
assai!_ And so in Bohemia, the Czechs have a good reputation
for frugality, sobriety, etc. as workmen. They are more
frugal than the Germans, although all the larger businesses
belong to Germans, because when the Czech has saved
something, he prefers to return to his village to putting
his savings in jeopardy by speculation.]

[Footnote 222-3: Drunkenness a common vice of northern
people: thus in antiquity the Thracians (_Athen._, X, 42;
_Xenoph._, Exp. Cyri, VII, 3, 32), the Macedonians, for
instance, Philips (_Demosth._, Olynth., II, 23) and
Alexander's (_Plutarch_, Alex., 70; De Adulat, 13). To drink
like a Scythian, meant, among the Greeks, to drink like a
beast. (_Athen._, X, 427; _Herod._, VI, 84.) On North German
drunkenness in the 16th century, see _Seb. Münster_,
Cosmogr., 326, 730. _Kantzow_, Pomerania, II, 128.]

[Footnote 222-4: _Plutarch_, Cato, I, 21.]