SUPER-LUXURY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Though a great admirer of the temperate and manly tone which characterizes the Spectator, I should like to point out what seems to me an error in the editorial note appended to Archdeacon Armstrong Hall's letter in your issue of March 23rd. You state that "the essential evil of, super-luxury is the harm done to those who indulge in it.'
I would suggest, to begin with, that super-luxury, by its evil example, works infinite harm outside its own sphere, and that, moreover, history teaches us that it is generally accom- panied by appalling misery at the other end of the social scale. It is easy to see that the bulk of the money paid for it, far from circulating for the benefit of the whole community, goes into the pockets of those already rich; and that, secondly, super-luxury diverts capital and human energy from the creation of wealth in the necessaries of life to the creation of that which is in no sense needful even to a dignified and cultured existence. It is therefore literally "throwing money away," as Mr. Hall puts it. To thoughtful people who are committed to no economic creed of any sort, and whose circumstances do not bias them, either on the side of rich or poor, it is the wastefulness of super-luxury, not its enervating influence, which is its essential evil. Such observers cannot but be shocked by it, for they must always be saddened by the hopeless poverty of which too much is seen in our large cities. In conclusion may I quote some lines from Milton's " Comes" to point a moral P
"If every just man that now pines with want Had but a moderate and besooming share Of that which lewdly pampered luxury Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed In unsuperfluons oven proportion,
And she no whit encumbered of her store.
And then the Giver would be bettor thanked, His praise due paid."
[We could wish the putting down of super-luxury would have the economic effect expected by our correspondent and by Milton. It would, however, in reality have no such effect. Economically it is unimportant if not entirely negligible. Far
more momentous economically is the waste caused by bad and inefficient methods of production and by the clinging to old
systems of transport and distribution when sounder systems might be employed. All Lucullus's dinners, all Eugenio's wines and perfumes, all Delilah's fine linen and brocades, are as nothing in the matter of waste compared with Jones's determination not to improve his system of manu- facture till driven thereto by the risk of bankruptcy. "It
was my father's custom, and so it shall he mine" has deprived far more poor men of a share of the good things of this world than any wallowing in luxury. Many luxuries, indeed, are useful incentives to hard work—carrots in front of the
donkey's nose. Let us make men feel how ignoble
" wallowing " is, how foolish and bow contemptible, but let us not run down the blind alley of the Sumptuary Laws.— En. Spectator.]
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