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The investment of small savings in land with a view to spade-husbandry, was a few years ago brought prominently before the working-classes. We took occasion, at the time, to warn the humbler classes generally against projects of this kind, but without any beneficial effect. Land-schemes, as they were called, were puffed into popularity, and all our advices and remonstrances on the subject were rejected with disdain. Universal ruin has followed these schemes, and the unfortunate dupes are left to mourn their loss. Nothing is more specious than a plan of earning an independent livelihood by cultivating a few acres of land; but, practically, it is open to some serious drawbacks. First, the cultivator requires to be skilled in husbandry, and of a bodily frame to endure the fatigue of constant out-door labour. Second, his land must be tolerably good, and situated under a good climate. Third, the land must be close to a market, otherwise the produce cannot be disposed of. The cultivation of a small bit of land is in reality a kind of gardening. No horse-labour can be employed; all is to be done by the spade. It may be possible, therefore, to make a livelihood near a large town, where anything that is produced—milk and butter included—will find a ready market at no cost of transport; but in other circumstances the thing is almost hopeless. It is a notorious fact, that the most wretched of the rural population of this country are small cultivators, even if the land costs next to nothing. We are aware that the small-farm system is more successful in Belgium and Lombardy. On the reasons for this, it is here needless to enter. We take the examples offered in Great Britain, where it has never come up to the expectations of philanthropists.

The purchase of forty-shilling freeholds has lately been put forward as a method of investing money by the working-classes. It is beyond our province to speak of the political aims of this form of investment. We can recognise a certain good in giving to a working-man the feeling, that he is the proprietor of a house or small portion of land yielding (along with the franchise in England) a rent of forty shillings per annum; but, at the same time, we recognise a corresponding evil, and we should be shrinking from our duty if we did not mention it in distinct terms. In those localities where operatives and others can reckon on constant remunerative employment, it may prove a real service in many ways for them to buy a house instead of renting one; indeed, we should highly recommend them to become the proprietors of the dwellings which they occupy. But in places where workmen possess no such assurance or reasonable prospect of employment, we would as earnestly dissuade them from taking a step of this kind. The capital of a working-man—that on which he must place his dependence—is his labour; and this labour he ought to be in a position to dispose of to the best advantage. On this account, he requires, as a general rule, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever his labour is in demand. Of all men, he has the most cause to be a citizen of the world. He may find it his interest to remove to localities hundreds of miles off; and therefore the fewer obstructions to his movements, the better. Heritable property is a fixture. A man cannot take it with him, and the sale of it, even when time is permitted to seek out a purchaser, is attended with expense and difficulty. No doubt the transfer of such property might and ought to be vastly lowered in cost; but not until this is done, will it be time for the more movable part of the working-classes to consider the propriety of saddling themselves with the ownership of lands and houses. Such, at least, is our opinion, after much consideration of the subject. So many melancholy instances have we seen of working-men being ruined by the want of power or will to leave small heritable possessions in country towns, where employment deserted them, that we entertain a strong feeling against this class of persons investing their earnings in fixed property.

Upon the whole, the best thing the humbler classes can do with small savings, is to let them accumulate as movable capital. They should perceive that, generally speaking, a little money has few advantageous outlets. It is only after its increase to a tolerable sum, that it can command a good investment. A short time ago, we adverted to the vast benefits that would accrue to the working-classes, by legalising partnerships in commandite; for this would allow the clubbing of means for trading purposes without chance of total loss. Another thing for improving the resources of such classes, would be the issue of small debentures on land, railways, and other kinds of property; these debentures to be registered in such a manner as would admit of legal recourse without the tedious and expensive forms now required to enforce their liquidation. These, then, are things to be struggled for by the humbler orders, indeed by many who ostensibly belong to classes higher in social standing.