31 OCTOBER 1931, Page 15

PERSONAL ECONOMY AND PUBLIC WELFARE

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Harold Cox, in his article on " Personal Economy and Public Welfare," puts the case so clearly that one Immediately feels that it should have the widest possible publicity. Many people who should know better continue

to spend their money on " ephemeral pleasures," and economies being necessary, as they must be now, unproductive expenditure of this nature seems too often to escape the domestic axe. I have in conversations recently often expressed the view that the habit of personal extravagance that has grown upon many of us since the War is responsible for much of the harm we are suffering as a nation, and that it is within the power of each of us to assist the country by exercising strict economy,. and spending the money so saved productively. Often the reply has been that such economy adds to unemployment, and it will do more harm than good.

No doubt several of your readers have written to you after reading Mr. Cox's excellent article, urging for it a wider publicity for the sake of the nation. I do not know whether means are available to you for such a purpose, but I firmly believe, if they are, immense good could thereby be done.—