She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, and a
yearning for the Beautiful and True and Good will not lighten her burden.
They do nothing for her, these dabblers; and what they do not do for the
mother, undoes at night, when the child comes home, all that they have
done for the child in the day.
And one and all, they join in teaching a fundamental lie. They do not
know it is a lie, but their ignorance does not make it more of a truth.
And the lie they preach is "thrift." An instant will demonstrate it. In
overcrowded London, the struggle for a chance to work is keen, and
because of this struggle wages sink to the lowest means of subsistence.
To be thrifty means for a worker to spend less than his income--in other
words, to live on less. This is equivalent to a lowering of the standard
of living. In the competition for a chance to work, the man with a lower
standard of living will underbid the man with a higher standard. And a
small group of such thrifty workers in any overcrowded industry will
permanently lower the wages of that industry. And the thrifty ones will
no longer be thrifty, for their income will have been reduced till it
balances their expenditure.
In short, thrift negates thrift.
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