THE GOLDEN AGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3330, 23 September 1911, Page 3

THE GOLDEN AGE.

.WHAT THE PEOPLE ARE SPENDING.

(By G. Pais In, Editor of the “Statist”).

No feature of modern life lias struck the popular imagination more than the display of wealth which is so conspicuous in every part of the world] to-day. Money is now spent with a profusion which would have amazed our fathers, a r few as totally unknown and impossible .to ibrmer generations. The expenditures of the nations upon armaments are incredibly great; indeed, in the aggregate. they are greater to-day in peace than they ever .were in war. MONEY SPENT ON TRAVEL. rThe sums spent upon travel and upon recreation are almost incalculable in their magnitude. Floating hotels carry the well-to-do from country to country in a state of luxury that kings could .not afford a, generation, or two ago. Sumptuous trains worked at heavy cost convey travellers with great rapidity over the larger part of the earth's surface. The motor-car. notwithstanding .its expensiveness to construct and to run, has become the plaything of a great many persons who, but a .short time ago, were unable to set up a carriage, and who now spend hundreds per annum when previously, they could not spend tens of pounds. Every coast and nearly every; beautiful district on the eartn’s surface are studded with hotels or summer resi- . denoee, and! in these days the multitude spends some portion of the year in re.creation on the sea coast or in the country.

MONEY SPENT ON DRESS. Upon ornamentation and upon dress the outlays have expanded in a remarkable manner. Gold has replaced silver as the ornament of the masses over the greater part of the world, and even so poor a country as India is now using two or three times as much gold as formerly. Furthermore, the demand for pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones has never been so universal as it lias been in recent years. Probably one of the greatest indications of the vast increase in the world’s wealth in modern times is the sums .now expended on what the womenfolk term “dress.” One can visit no city, town, or village in Europe, or in the new countries, either, without being impressed with the almost unlimited expenditures upon clothing. The sums now spent from year to year upon buildings and houses are of fabulous extent. In all the great cities of the world unprecedented numbers of costly buildings and houses have been, and are being, erected. Nor axe expsnditures -confined to cities of tlie first rank. In all the important towns of the world expensive buildings and houses are rapidly increasing in number.

MONEY SPENT ON CITIES AND HORSES. Moreover, large sums are being spent upon what are termed city improve- , merits, designed to raise the standard' of comfort, of health, and of aesthetic enjoyment. The improvement in the housing of the masses of the people, l both of this and of other countries, is equally marked. Our. forefathers would ! have regarded a constant supply of pure . wlater and baths for laboring men as extravagant superfluities yet we are rapidly approaching the time when the working man of the civilised world will enjoy these luxuries, and when the morning bath will be a ceremony as sacred as the morning meal. INTELLECTUAL ADVANTAGES. The intellectual advantages and amusements of modern life have shown equal advancement. Education is universal, except in the dark countries. Children .are now but rarely called upon to contribute to the family purse at the early age to which they used to seek employment, and the average, age at which children now leave school is steadily rising. Moreover, the education, instruction, and amusement of everyone in the past generation or two by the circulation of newspapers, magazines, and books is nothing short of a revolution. Never did the average man and woman advance in knowledge anti intellectual attainments as in modern times, and the annual cost of supplying the world with literature has risen bv°leaps and bounds. ' , ~ The declining tendency of the deaths rate shows, I think, conclusively the ‘ great attention now paid and the large sums now devoted to medical, nursing and sanitary science, although it is also due to the general advance m intellectual, moral and physical standards which has come with the improvement in the conditions of existence rendered possible by the enormous growth in the world’s wealth.

MONEY SPENT ON FOOD. It is obvious that all this additional expenditure upon defence, upon recreation upon travel, upon ornamentation, upon clothing, upon housing upon education, upon literature, and upon the preservation of health could only have been effected concurrently with, a vastly increased expenditure upon food. Indeed, the immensely greater sums avilable for the purchase of food, and tne vast increase in the supply of food, have alone rendered possible the liberal expenditure upon necessaries, comforts, £nd luxuries to which I have referred. Never has the world enjoyed so. much food in proportion to its population as it has secured in modern times, an , consequently, never .has the world been as healthy, as well clothed and housed, had greater'warmth m ;winter, had as iftaany comforts, and; enjoyed so high Tsfcate of luxury as it does to-day. In fact la jole de vivre has rapidly bioadIned and deepened and. all rank*( classes and sections oi society, m the pew and in the old countries, m the backward as well as in the progressive state in the brown, yellow, and black races as well as in the white, have attained l degree of wealth and prosperity immeasurably higher and greater than anything that has hitherto been witnessed.

THE REAL PROSPERITY. .. The causes of the great revolution m the material, and intellectual condition o f thewor Id in modern times have been many .but there can be no doubt that the wonderful progress we have witnessed has been mainly brought about by wider knowledge and soundei principles of social welfare than were formerly held; principles which, when they Sin still wider acceptance, cannot fail i bring a degree of prosperity to the race which will surpass anything that is now; dreamt , of. Over the past century and a half the world has become increasingly conscious of the fact that individuals and nations m seeking to grow wealthy at the expense or other individuals and nations, were retarding Progress and creating poverty, and that venation’s prosperity is enhanced, not diminished, by the prosperity of other countries. The world is fasti aproaciiing economic maturity and to that high condition of well-being which cannot fail to result from fuller knowledge, and from the elimination of the physical and mental barriers which have so greatly impeded progress in the past. As the work advances and the nations more fully recognise the solidarity of

their interests, the world can look forward to a degree of well-being for the race far beyond the dreams of the dreamer.

THE FUTURE.

The outlook for the future seems to be a very bright one. Never was tlie world more inventive, never was the spirit of .enterprise more apparent, and never were tlie savings of the world on a greater scale in proportion to population than they are to.-day. Look where w© will., there is progress, and Great Britain appears to be more progressive than ever.