INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS.

DURING the last ten or twenty years public attention has been directed

in a remarkable manner to the condition of the industrial classes of this country. The reports of government officers, the statements made by town missionaries, and the letters of special correspondents of the newspapers, have brought to light such a mass of misery and destitution as to startle and surprise that half of the world which proverbially does not know how the other half lives. Indeed the tender-hearted man of good means and substance, as he peruses the host of publications on the subject—from the parliamentary Blue-Book, with its cold unstudied array of awful facts, to the two-volumed novel with its graphic grouping of forcible fictions-feels himself so much moved that he cannot for a time fully enjoy the ordinary comforts and luxuries of life. In his blazing coalfire he sees pictures of subterranean barbarity that make him shudder; his bread reminds him of poor bakers working out their lives both day and night in close, unhealthy workshops, and sometimes so ill rewarded that they cannot obtain for themselves and their families a sufficiency of that which they are daily making; he pauses as he puts on his coat, and thinks of the sweating-system, and of miserable tailors unable often to earn even soldier's wages of a shilling a day, and many of them unwilling to appear in the streets or at church on Sundays from the want of the clothes which it is their business to make; and his clean, spotless linen loses all its purity when he thinks of the sufferings and the sins of the poor needlewomen, who

'With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,'

are wearing out their lives in an almost hopeless struggle to support themselves by honest industry. On every hand he sees the most glaring anomalies in society: immense wealth and gigantic poverty; the highest points of civilisation and the lowest depths of barbarism; men and women living in possession of an overflowing abundance of the elegances and comforts of existence, while in the same city those of like passions with themselves, members of the same great human family, are herding together not so much like savages as like wild beasts-in short, a state of things rising on one side as near to heaven as on the other it sinks near to hell. His conscience gives him no rest till he has done something by No. 87.

way of remedy; so he subscribes to some charitable institution, or writes a pamphlet, or forms a philanthropic society. He labours for a time: tries various schemes for man's regeneration; opens a school perhaps, or a soup-kitchen, or promotes emigration; and ultimately finds himself so much imposed on and deluded by the very people whom he is labouring to serve, that he gives up the profession of philanthropy, and returns to enjoy the good things of this life without feeling as previously that 'the trail of the serpent is over them all.'

This class of men- - well-meaning, benevolent, and kindhearted-too often actually stand in the way of improvement in the condition of the labouringclasses. They view the subject from the lowest and necessarily the wrong position: they can see nothing but the misery, think of nothing but its immediate relief. Their hearts are so deeply moved that they cannot stop to entertain a few obvious considerations. Without casting any imputation on the veracity of the gentlemen of the press whose researches and reports have lately supplied the public with so much important and valuable information, the question may be asked: How far the experience gathered in the reporters' galleries of the two Houses of Parliament fits a man for investigating the social condition of the country? That these gentlemen have reported accurately what they have heard and seen cannot be doubted; but the very circumstances under which their inquiries were carried on must have prevented them in numerous cases from thoroughly investigating the accuracy of the statements made, and could not permit them to inquire into the real and true causes which had produced the state of things it was their business to describe. Every man who knows anything of the past or present state of the population knows well that at all times and seasons there is a great floating mass of beggary, laziness, and misconduct, always ready to tell any tale to a charitable society, or impose in any way on the benevolent and the inquiring, so that they may procure the means of gratifying their desires for a life of indolence and vagabondage. It is this class who, by being cast to the surface, appear prominently in superficial inquiries, and accordingly attract the attention of the benevolent and kindhearted, who relieve them very often without much inquiry into the truth of their representations. But another consideration is too often overlooked by the class of philanthropists to which we have referred. Seeing nothing but distress, their relief of it is direct and prompt, and necessarily temporary. The causes of distress are left untouched, and constantly reproduce cases of the same kind; and these benevolent gentlemen cannot be induced to adopt the slow and apparently harsher, but in reality more merciful plan, of patiently investigating causes and removing them if they are removable.

Another class of men on whom these revelations have made a strong impression view the subject from an entirely different position. They regard this bad state of things as arising from want of employment and insufficient wages, these again being caused by the system of competition : accordingly, they would abolish this system, and establish the principle of co-operation, or, as it is now more generally termed, Christian Socialism. Of this system we shall in a subsequent part of this Paper have much to say; in the meantime we shall merely indicate its nature. It is very different from what we usually understand by Socialism. So far as it has

hitherto developed itself it has to do simply and solely with the relations between capital and labour: it violates no religious principle or even prejudice; alters no existing institution, whether of marriage or parental obligation; and has no political purpose in view. Nor is it Communism. It seeks no new division of property, no absolute equality in the wages of labour, and no special claim on the civil government: it merely proposes to associate workmen of the same trade in a business-partnership, to be carried on either with borrowed capital or with capital subscribed by those associated together, and to give each man a share in the profits of the business in proportion to the labour which he contributes; in other words, the profits now received by the master will be shared among the men after paying interest on capital.

There is another class of thinkers satisfied with things as they are. They admit the misery, but regard it as inevitable. They consider that so long as sin is in this world, so long will the world contain destitution and misery, ignorance and crime. They can suggest nothing but a passive acquiescence in things as we find them, and leave them to work out, if they can, their own cure.

Among the working-classes there is an earnest and sincere desire to improve their own condition. The great majority seek nothing but a fair field for their labour-a just share in the fruits of their industry: few of them desire to eat the bread of idleness, or to receive charitable assistance except in the last extremity; but they are all too prone to believe in those who tell them that they have been tyrannised over by class-legislators and robbed by rapacious capitalists, and are too eager, in defiance of repeated warnings and ever-recurring examples, to engage in schemes that promise advantages it is impossible to realise, and hold out hopes that must inevitably be disappointed.

If the history of the working-classes of this country were faithfully written, it would throw more light on the measures necessary for the improvement of their condition than newspaper or government inquiries, or abstract speculations. We believe it would be found that at every period in their history some portions of them have been in as depressed a state as those whose case has been so prominently made public. Poverty and destitution are old residents of this world; and there were hard taskmasters, practising cruelty with impunity, long before the days of the sweaters and slopsellers of London. We do not say that the existence of such a state of things in the past should render us indifferent to that which exists now, but it ought certainly to diminish our surprise, and prevent us from rushing to rash measures of reform. For however wild and foolish many of the schemes proposed in the present day for the improvement of society may be, other schemes even more foolish and wilder have in days gone by been proposed and tried with results that have ever since been deplored. We believe, further, that it would be found that the low physical condition of the working-classes could always be traced more to moral evils which they have the power to remedy than to want of employment and low wages; and that, generally speaking, at no former period in the history of this country had they a greater command of the comforts and necessaries of life, or greater facilities for providing against accident and misfortune, than at the present day.

When a working-man casts even a hasty glance into the future, three great contingencies appear-want of employment, sickness, and death. He may escape the first and second, but he cannot avoid the third. He will at once see the necessity of providing against these, and the impossibility of doing so unless he lives within his income and invests his savings in a profitable manner. There are doubtless exceptions to every rule, but few working-men will be unable, by the help of thrifty and prudent wives, to save sufficient year by year as to make them look on the future with comparatively easy minds. The dangers into which they are liable to run are saving on the wrong items of expenditure, and making ill-advised investments. A man had better not save at all than save by not sending his children to school, or by refusing to allow himself and his family a sufficiency of wholesome food. In the first case, he deprives his children of that knowledge which is 'better than riches,' and of a means of supporting themselves in the world, at least equal in importance to their physical labour; while in the second case, his parsimony will sow the seeds of disease and decay, not to be counterbalanced by any investment. In this unwise neglect of the education of children lies the cause of much of the misery that we see around us. Go into any of our large towns, and you will find thousands of parents spending more money every week in indulgences which they would be far better without, or in subscriptions to clubs which end in disappointment and loss, while their children are growing up not only without the instruction and discipline of the school, but with the instruction and discipline of the streets, that are too well fitting them to tread the same improvident and intemperate path as their fathers. Even among the richer classes a somewhat similar feeling prevails. When a necessity arises for retrenchment, the first item struck off is the expenditure on the education of the children, and they are either altogether removed from school or sent to one of an inferior quality. Parents generally forget what kind of a possession a good education is, and overlook the fact that, unlike material property, when once gained it can never be lost, and that the longer it is used the stronger and more extended does it become.

But there is less danger to be apprehended from saving in the wrong way than from improvident investments. It is with savings as it is in trade and with capital of all kinds-the amount of profits is in the inverse ratio of the security. If a man is anxious to make money fast, he must go out of the field of legitimate business and enter that of speculation, and while he has the chance of great gains he incurs the risk of great losses. When this is practised to an excessive extent it becomes neither more nor less than gambling, and is inevitably followed by the same results. The gains, if any, are not the legitimate interest on capital or the produce of labour, but simply represent the losses of others. There are many societies founded on a speculative basis which hold out to working-men the hope of high interest combined with firm security, but such societies should receive no encouragement. Money, like everything else, has always its fair market-price; and whenever any society offers a higher than the market-price, the difference between the two is a gain of interest counterbalanced by the increased risk of the principal. Working-men, therefore, should be especially careful in investing their money to prefer good security to high interest or other great advantages. Great capitalists

may with impunity embark in speculations, for their transactions can be so varied that losses in one way are made up in another; but if the working-man be unfortunate in his investment, the loss is usually the loss of his all.

Assuming, then, that by a little self-denial and prudent management savings could easily be made, let us now review the various modes of investment open to the working-classes, and the extent to which these have been used. These may be classed under three heads:-1. Investments to accumulate property; 2. Investments to provide against sickness and the consequences of death; 3. Investments both of money and labour, so as to procure a better reward for the latter. Under the first head we rank Savings' Banks, Building, Land, and Loan Societies; under the second, Friendly Societies and Mutual- Assurance Companies; and under the third, Co-operative Stores, and Industrial Associations. Each of these we shall consider in detail.

Before the establishment of savings' banks, the working-classes had no place of security in which their savings could be beneficially deposited. Those who were careful and provident hoarded their money in secret and unsuspected places; wrapped it up in an old stocking, or put it under lock and key in a chest of drawers. It was not perhaps secure, nor did it reproduce itself, but it was always at hand ready for any emergency. The amount thus hoarded up must have been very small when compared with the sums we now find accumulated in the savings' banks. There are many people who when they have money cannot rest until they spend it: a shilling or a sovereign, to use their own phrase, 'burns a hole in the pocket;' and unless it is put beyond their reach, say in the savings' bank, they are sure to squander it away. Large sums were undoubtedly spent in this heedless manner before such banks were formed. The nature of a savings' bank is well known. It meets the requirements of the workingclasses by facilitating the weekly deposit of small sums; by paying a rate of interest a little higher than the ordinary banks; and by offering the security of the nation. The limitation of the amount received is merely to prevent the use of the bank by persons for whom it was not intended; and the rule requiring notice to be given before any money is withdrawn, must prevent in many cases a reckless application of the money.

It would be difficult to imagine any bank simply of deposit better contrived for the wants of the working-classes than the savings' banks of this country; nevertheless the truth is, that the depositors belong in very few cases to the working-classes, and that these classes look on the banks with jealousy and distrust. The number of depositors on 20th November 1849, the date to which the most recent returns have been made up, was 1,087,354, including 22,323 charitable institutions and friendly societies, and the total amount deposited, including interest, was £28,537,010. The class of the community who are the chief depositors in savings' banks are domestic servants; after them come clerks, shopmen, and teachers; but of actual working-men the number is very small. The amount invested in these banks has diminished considerably since 1844. In that year it was more than £31,250,000; in 1847 it was £1,000,000 less, and in 1849 nearly £3,000,000 less than in 1844. To some extent this