The Wickedness of Waste

But, ladies and gentlemen, I said a moment ago it was a question, rather, how can the poor be thrifty? Well, I will not go into that question, except to say that, as I think I have demonstrated, page 12 it has been in the power of the poorest to be thrifty in our country in the past But there is, at any rate, one sort of thrift which is in the power of the very poorest, and which is to refrain from waste. If I wanted to train up a child to be thrifty, as I have apparently trained my eldest son—(laughter)—I should teach him to abhor waste. I do not mean the waste of money. That cures itself, because very soon there is no money to waste. But I mean waste of material, waste of something which is useful, which may not represent any money value to the waster. Then there is waste of what does not belong to us, which is a very common form of waste. There is waste of water. Indeed, Edinburgh ought to know something about the waste of water. I am not speaking of the waste caused by the pollution of our rivers, though that, perhaps, is the most criminal form of waste that exists in our midst. There is not a river that flows round Edinburgh, there is not a river that flows through Mid-Lothian, that is not hopelessly polluted, and wantonly polluted, so that it cannot be used for any cleanly purpose. I am not speaking of the waste of water in that way, but the waste in private families, among individuals, who waste that precious element in a way which compels Edinburgh to go seeking every twenty years or so for a new source of supply. I remember being a member of a small municipality in the south of England when this question of waste came before us. We found that water was allowed to run, and that every page 13 form of waste was indulged in, because it cost nothing; and so the result was a water famine when summer came on. Again, let us take the waste of gas and things of that kind, I believe Edinburgh Town Council has recently adopted a stringent measure for the prevention of the waste of gas, but I am not a resident in the city, and so 1 have not experienced its rigour; but at any rate we all of us must see that there is a constant waste of things which cost nothing to waste, but which are in reality an offence against ourselves and against the economy of the world.