EXPENDITURE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 539 



us by the different experiences and habits of foreign countries. And 

 we are happy in a neighbor like France, with her literary and social 

 charms and graces, her scientific lucidity and inventiveness, and the 

 contrasts of her social genius to inspire comparisons, and in many re- 

 spects to set us examples. I have singled out one of her many writers 

 for attention, precisely because of this quality of suggestiveness. Other 

 investigators have, of course, attacked the subject. In Belgium and 

 Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria, and the United States, gov- 

 ernments and individuals have recently undertaken the preparation of 

 family budgets; but in many respects Le Play's monographs are the 

 first and greatest of all. They yield excellent material, upon which 

 science, in its various branches, has yet to do work which will benefit 

 mankind in general; and promises especially to benefit the people of 

 this country. The cosmopolitan attitude of the older economists was 

 largely due to their centering their attention upon the problems of ex- 

 change. To them the globe was peopled by men like ourselves, pro- 

 ducing the fruits of the earth, anxious to exchange them to the greatest 

 mutual advantage, but hindered from doing so by the perversity of 

 national governments. The facts of consumption, at any rate, are local. 

 They are often determined by geology, geography, climate and occupa- 

 tion; and, however fully we may admit the economic solidarity of the 

 world, and the advantage which one part of it derives from the pros- 

 perity of another, yet we may be easily forgiven for thinking that our 

 first duty lies to our own brethren; that our natural work is that which 

 lies at our own doors; that, as the old proverb says, 'the skin is nearer 

 than the shirt.' And we may fairly be excused if we attempt to make 

 our contribution to the welfare of the human family through the im- 

 provement of the consumption of wealth and the condition of the people 

 in our own land. 



