MIDDLE-CLASS EXPENDITURE.
[TO TIM EDITOR Or TIM EFRCTATOR."]
your issue of the 23rd inst. I read with much interest the letter over the signature of your correspondent "A Bad Economist." I do not see how any one, even the Spectator with its unique experience, can advise an individual person as to the manner in which he should disburse his income, as the circumstances in each case differ so largely ; and whilst "A Bad Economist" has mentioned one or two items of expenditure, he carefully omits to mention what is really the governing factor,—the nature of his income. I think your correspondent has himself, perhaps unconsciously, struck the true keynote when be says : " The worst of it is that any one item of expenditure, taken by itself, seems not only reason- able but inevitable." This, to my mind, accurately reflects the general error of the present day, and in such cases can only be summed up correctly in the ugly and unpleasant phrase " We are living above our incomes," and the sooner we face the fact the better, for assuredly there can be but one
Previous page
