On Monday Lord Rosebery gave an excellent address on thrift
at the annual meeting of the Edinburgh Savings Bank, an institution in which the deposits have increased over a million in the last ten years. After a sly remark that when persons with £800 or £1,000 saved are rewarded by an old- age pension of 5s. a week, no one could feel that the scope of the scheme is a discouragement of thrift, Lord Rosebet7 went to the heart of the matter in declaring that thrift was blessed, not merely because of the accumulation of substance, but because of the foundation and strengthening of character. A man who is beforehand with the world, in however small a degree, occupied a very different position to the rest of the world from the man who is behindhand with it, to however small an extent. Finally, Lord Rosebery dwelt, in a passage which is deserving of the attention of the whole nation, upon the criminality of waste. Refraining from waste was a sort of thrift which was in the power of the poorest.
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