It would be a lovely world if there were no credit system. Think of the millstones some of us hang round our necks in the shape of debts, all on account of this temptation. In one of Mr. Howell’s books, he makes the father of a family say to his children: “Don’t spend money if you haven’t got any.” The advice seems superfluous, and would be so if we had to pay ready money for everything we buy. But it is, in existing circumstances, only too easy to spend money that we have not got; from the dealings in the Stock Exchange down to the fishmonger’s round the corner.

There are two ways of looking at the matter—one from the purchaser’s point of view, the other from the seller’s. I intend to take the purchaser’s first, having long thought the credit system highly demoralising to many who might have thriven and prospered bravely had not its insinuating temptations been thrown in their way. It is so fatally easy to order a quantity of nice things, “Facilis est descensus.”to be paid for in a nebulous future, which always seem a long way off. And then, when the grip of it all begins to be felt, we are afraid not to go on ordering, lest our creditor should be offended and dun us for his “little account.” And so we get deeper and deeper in debt, and soon begin to lose our footing in the financial whirlpool. Oh, the misery of it! The long, sleepless nights of worry and despair, the irritable frame of mind thereby engendered, the loss of self-respect, the inability to make the most of our income while in debt, and the consequent hopelessness of ever extricating ourselves—all, all might be avoided if we were forced to pay on the spot for every purchase.

That the credit system has its advantages is more than possible; but I am not looking for them just at this moment. I want to sketch a gloomy picture, with the hope of inducing all who look upon it to abandon the habit of running long accounts, with its often ruinous results. The young wife’s initial error.The inexperienced young wife, unaccustomed to deal with large sums of money, often cripples her hard-working husband by falling most unconsciously into the snares of the system as it exists. In her desire to have everything comfortable, inviting, and agreeable for him in the home in his hours of leisure, she launches out in “ordering” all that she thinks would aid her in this unquestionably excellent object. Money always promises to do a great deal more than it ever actually accomplishes. An odious characteristic.It is one of its most odious characteristics, and the novice never dreams but that the incoming sums will cover all her outlay. Then comes the tug-of-war, and if she has no moral courage she struggles on without laying the whole matter before her husband, and is soon in a network of difficulties. He has to know, soon or late, and the resultant rift within the lute is by no means little. It is a very bad start! And when the wife would like to dress her little ones daintily and prettily, she finds herself unable to spend upon them anything beyond what may pay for absolute necessaries. If her punishment had not begun before, it very certainly commences then.

And is not the poor husband to be pitied? He had, no doubt, the idea that all women, after their schooldays, are apt housewives, and entrusted to his young wife the entire management of the household. It is hard on him when he finds that all is chaos in the exchequer, and that he has to deny himself for years in many ways in order to pay debts that should never have been contracted.

Think of the delightful difference there might have been in the little family were there no such thing as “trust” in trade, the children beautifully dressed and the pride of a happy mother; the father in good humour and gaiety of heart, enjoying his home as a man ought, who works to maintain it; and the sunshine of prosperity pervading every room of it!

Thousands and thousands of homes have been ruined by the credit system. The only means of averting such disaster is the exercise of strength of mind in resisting the temptation. This involves a splendid, but extremely costly, education in moral fortitude, to those who possess but little of such strength and have to acquire it by long and sad experience.

It might help some to resist running long accounts if they were to realise that doing so is really borrowing money from their tradespeople. Yes, madam! That £5 you owe your laundress is just so much borrowed of the poor woman, and without interest, too. And can you bear to think of the anxiety of mind it costs her, poor, hard-working creature; for how can she tell that you will ever pay her? There is your dressmaker, too. How much have you compulsorily borrowed of her? You owe her £100, perhaps. And for how long has it been owing? You pay £10 or so off it, and order another gown; and so it has been going on for years and years. You don’t see why you should have to pay your dressmaker money down when your husband never thinks of paying his tailor under three or four years.

Well, two wrongs never yet made a right, and the fact that men of fashion never pay their tailors until they have been dunned over and over again for the money is only another item in the indictment against the credit system.

It is undignified to owe money to any one, and more particularly to one’s social inferiors, but this view of the subject is too seldom taken. Can any one dispute it, however? We badly want it to be made plain to the eyes of the whole community.

One disagreeable result of the credit system is the raising of the market price of commodities in order to cover the losses resultant to the trader. Not only do bad debts occur, which have to be written off the books, but being “out of one’s money” for years means loss of interest. Those who pay ready money are sometimes, and should always be, allowed discount off all payments, but even when this is done it does not suffice to meet the claims of absolute justice in the matter, the scales of prices having been adjusted to cover losses owing to the credit system.

Tradesmen have to charge high rates or they could not keep on their business, and the hard part of it is that the very persons who enable them to keep going by paying their accounts weekly are those who suffer most from the system, paying a fifth or so more than they need were all transactions “money down.”

And now for the other side of the question. It has often been said that tradesmen like customers to run long accounts. Let any one who believes this buy a few of the trade papers, and see what they have to say on the subject. Let them visit a few of the West End Court milliners and ask them what their opinion of the matter is. Let them interview the managers of large drapery houses. They will soon find that the tradesman has a distinct grievance in the credit system. Here is what one dressmaker says, and she is only one of a very numerous class, every member of which is in exactly similar circumstances.

She is a clever and enterprising woman who had opened an establishment for the sale of all kinds of articles for ladies’ wear, and complains bitterly that, though she is doing a good trade, all her money has become “buried in her books.” She is making money with her extending business, “but,” she says, “I really have less command of cash than at any time in my life. The fact is my savings are all lent to rich people.” A case in point.Asked for an example, she said: “The last bill I receipted this morning will do. Ten months ago a lady came into the shop, talked pleasantly on Church matters, in which I am interested, bought nearly £30 worth of goods, after very sharp bargaining, that reduced my profits to the narrowest margin, and went away. To have suggested payment during these ten months would have been regarded as an insult, and I should have lost her custom for ever. I have often been in need of the money. She is the wife of a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, is regarded as philanthropic, talks about self-help among women, and very likely visited my shop in that spirit; yet though she is undoubtedly rich she borrowed £30 of my capital for ten months without paying any interest.”

“If I could only get a little money in from my customers,” said a hard-worked West End milliner to me one day during a very hot and exhausting May, “I could run off to the seaside or to Scotland for a week, and take my poor old mother, who needs a change even more than I do. But I can’t get any of my ladies to pay.” “Write and tell them how it is,” I suggested. “Oh, no! That would never do,” was the reply. “I should offend them terribly, and they would not only never come back themselves, but would pass the word round among their friends that I am given to dunning.”

One of these ladies owed her £800, and probably still owes some of it, though that was three or four seasons since; for her way of paying off is to order a thirty-guinea gown or two, and pay in £50 or £100 to her credit. One result of the system.The truth is that the system is chiefly responsible for the enormous cost of fashionable dress nowadays, since the only means the purveyors can adopt to secure themselves against loss is to charge exorbitant prices. When their customers practically borrow all their money of them, they are well justified in charging interest on it in some form or other. This naturally results in raising the market value of well-cut and skilfully-constructed dresses, &c., and bears very hardly on those who pay their way with ready-money.

Would it not be an excellent idea to form a society of women in aristocratic circles who would bind themselves to pay ready-money for all articles purchased? They could demand, and would certainly obtain, a substantial discount on all such payments, and with the thin edge of the wedge thus inserted the reform would soon be well on its way to permanent establishment.