Thrift and the Empire

I do not want to detain you too long; hut I want to take you to a larger sphere of thrift, and that, after all, is the main point on which I want to insist to-day. All great Empires have been thrifty. Take the Roman Empire which in some respects, as a centralised Empire, was the greatest page 15 in history, which lay like an iron clamp on the face of Europe. That was founded on thrift. When it ceased to be thrifty, it degenerated and came to an end. Take the case of Prussia, which began with a little narrow spit of sand in the north of Europe, 'all sting,' as some one said referring to its shape and the fact that almost all its inhabitants were armed men. It began with a narrow spit of sand. It was nurtured by the thrift of Frederick the Great's father, who prepared a vast treasure and a vast army by economy, which we should call sordid, but it was the means by which the greatness of Prussia was founded, from which the present German Empire has arisen. Take the case of France. In my humble belief, France, in spite of the returns I quoted at the beginning of my speech, is in reality the most frugal of all nations. I am not sure that the French always put their money into savings banks, and therefore they do not figure so well in the proportion of depositors to the nation as some others may do. But after the disastrous war of 1870, when France was crushed for the time by a foreign enemy and by a money imposition which it seemed almost impossible that any nation could pay, what happened? The stockings of the French peasantry, in which they had kept the savings of years, were emptied into the chest of the State, and that huge indemnity and cost of war were paid off in a time incredibly short. The other two nations I have spoken of were made by their thrift; and France was saved by her thrift. (Applause.)