From what we have said, it will be obvious that there can be no doubt as
to the ability of a large proportion of the better-paid classes of
working men to lay by a store of savings. When they set their minds upon
any object, they have no difficulty in finding the requisite money. A
single town in Lancashire contributed thirty thousand pounds to support
their fellow-workmen when on strike in an adjoining town. At a time when
there are no strikes, why should they not save as much money on their
own account, for their own permanent comfort? Many workmen already save
with this object; and what they do, all might do. We know of one large
mechanical establishment,--situated in an agricultural district, where
the temptations to useless expenditure are few,--in which nearly all the
men are habitual economists, and have saved sums varying from two
hundred to five hundred pounds each.
Many factory operatives, with their families, might easily lay by from
five to ten shillings a week, which in a few years would amount to
considerable sums. At Darwen, only a short time ago, an operative drew
his savings out of the bank to purchase a row of cottages, now become
his property. Many others, in the same place, and in the neighbouring
towns, are engaged in building cottages for themselves, some by means of
their contributions to building societies, and others by means of their
savings accumulated in the bank.
A respectably dressed working man, when making a payment one day at the
Bradford savings bank, which brought his account up to nearly eighty
pounds, informed the manager how it was that he had been induced to
become a depositor. He had been a drinker; but one day accidentally
finding his wife's savings bank deposit book, from which he learnt that
she had laid by about twenty pounds, he said to himself, "Well now, if
this can be done while I am spending, what might we do if both were
saving?" The man gave up his drinking, and became one of the most
respectable persons of his class. "I owe it all," he said, "to my wife
and the savings bank."
When well-paid workmen such as these are able to accumulate a sufficient
store of savings, they ought gradually to give up hard work, and remove
from the field of competition as old age comes upon them. They ought
also to give place to younger men; and prevent themselves being beaten
down into the lower-paid ranks of labour. After sixty a man's physical
powers fail him; and by that time he ought to have made provision for
his independent maintenance. Nor are the instances by any means
uncommon, of workmen laying by money with this object, and thereby
proving what the whole class might, to a greater or less extent,
accomplish in the same direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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