One national movement in which I took a prominent part was the formation of freehold land societies, which commenced somewhere about 1850, and at which The Times, after its manner in those days, sneered, asking scornfully what was a freehold land society. The apostle of the new movement, which was to teach the British working man how to save money and buy a bit of land on which to build a house and secure a vote, was Mr. James Taylor, born in Birmingham in 1814. Like all other Birmingham boys, James was early set to work, and became an apprentice in one of the fancy trades for which Birmingham was famed. His industrious habits soon acquired for him the approbation of his master, who, on retiring from business before Taylor was of age, gave him his indentures. About that time Taylor, earning good wages and not having the fear of Malthus before his eyes, got married and lived happily till, like too many of his class, he took to drink. After years of utter misery and degradation, Taylor, in a happy hour for himself and society, took the temperance pledge and became a new man. Nor was he satisfied with his own reform alone. He was anxious that others should be rescued from degradation as he had been. For this purpose he identified himself with the Temperance cause, and was honorary secretary to the Birmingham Temperance Society till he became the leader and originator of the Freehold Land Movement, and then for years his life was given to the public. He had but one speech, but it was a racy one, and his voice was soon lifted up in every town in the land. The plan pursued was to buy an estate, cut it up into allotments, and offer them almost free of legal expense. There never was such a chance for the working man as an investment, and thousands availed themselves of it—and were all the better for it—especially those who to pay their small subscriptions became teetotalers and gave up drink. And yet a learned writer in The Edinburgh Review had the audacity to write, “Notwithstanding this rapid popularity, however, notwithstanding also the high authorities which have been quoted on their behalf, we cannot look on these associations with unmixed favour, and we shall not be surprised if any long time elapses without well-grounded disappointment and discontent arising among their members. However desirable it may be for a peasant or an artisan to be possessor of the garden which he cultivates and of the house he dwells in, however clear and great the gain to him in this case, it is by no means equally certain that he can derive any pecuniary advantage from the possession of a plot of ground which is too far from his daily work for him either to erect a dwelling on it or to cultivate it as an allotment, and which from its diminutive size he will find it difficult for him to let for any sufficient remuneration. In many cases a barren site will be his only reward for £50 of saving, and however he may value this in times of excitement it will in three elections out of four be of little real interest or moment to him.” Happily the working men knew better than the Edinburgh reviewer, and the societies flourished all the more. The Conservatives were, of course, utterly indignant at this wholesale manufacture of faggot votes, as they were contemptuously termed, which threatened the seats of so many respectable Conservative county members, but in the end they thought better of it, and actually started a Conservative Freehold Land Society themselves, a fact announced to me in a letter from Mr. Cobden, which I have or ought to have somewhere in my possession. The societies increased so greatly that a journal was started by Mr. Cassell, called The Freeholder, of which I was editor, and was the means of often bringing me into contact with Mr. Cobden, a man with whom no one ever came in contact without feeling for him the most ardent admiration. At one time I saw a good deal of him, as it was my habit, at his request, to call on him each morning at his house in Westbourne Park, to talk over with him matters connected with the Freehold Land Movement, in which he took, as in everything that increased human progress, the deepest interest. As he once remarked half the money spent in gin would give the people the entire county representation, and besides provide them with desirable investments against a rainy day. Mr. James Taylor was always cheered as he showed his hearers how a man who drank a quart of ale a day engulfed at the same time a yard of solid earth. Land at that time was to be had remarkably cheap, and great profits were made by the early investors, and the moral benefit was great. Men learned the value of economy and thrift, and were all the better for gaining habits of forethought and self-denial. In our days the societies have become chiefly building societies, the political need of getting a vote in that way not being of so much importance as it was then.

In the early days of the Victorian era the workman had no inducement to save, and he spent his money foolishly because he had no opportunity of spending it better. The Poor-laws as they were till they were reformed by the Whigs—a heroic reform which made them everywhere unpopular—actually offered a premium on immorality, and the woman who had a number of illegitimate children—the parish rewarding her according to their number—was quite a prize in the matrimonial market. The old Poor-law administration became the demoralising agency to such an extent for the manufacture of paupers that honest wage-earners were at a discount, while numbers of the rate-paying classes found their lot so intolerable that they elected to swell the pauper ranks, and thereby much increased their pecuniary, if not their social, condition. The earlier a labourer became a married man and the father of a family the better off he became and the more he got out of his parish. We can scarcely credit it, yet it is an undoubted fact that under the old Poor-law, if a labourer was known to be thrifty or putting away his savings, he was refused work till his money was gone and he was reduced to his proper level. Even the labourer usually at work received parish pay for at least four children, and if he worked on the roads instead of the fields he received out of the highway rates a pound a-week instead of the usual nine shillings. If a working man joined a benefit club it generally met in a public-house, and a certain proportion of the funds were spent in refreshments—rather for the benefit of the landlords than for that of the members. It was not till 1834 that a reformed Poor-law made the practice of thrift possible. In many quarters law and custom have combined to prevent its growth among rural labourers who had been taught to live on the rates—to extract as much permanent relief as they could out of a nearly bankrupt body of ratepayers and to do in return as little hard work as was possible. The condition of things was then completely changed. The industrious man had a little better chance, and the idlers were put to the rout and, much to their disgust, forced to work, or at any rate to attempt to do so. Even the best benefit societies remained under a cloud and, till Parliament later on took the matter in hand, worked under great disadvantages. Frauds were committed; funds were made away with, and no redress could be obtained. Thrifty habits were discouraged on every side.

All England is ringing with the praise of thrift. Not Scotland, for a Scotchman is born thrifty—just as he is said to be born not able to understand a joke. And as to Irishmen, it is to be questioned whether they have such a word in their dictionary at all. No class of mutual thrift institution has flourished there, says the latest writer on the subject, Rev. Francis Wilkinson; and mostly our earlier thrift societies were started by a landlord for his own benefit, rather than for that of the members. Those were drinking days, says Mr. Wilkinson. The public-house was not only the home, but the cause of their existence; and as an evidence of the value of benefit clubs to the publican, we find the establishment of such advertised as one of the assets when the house is put up for sale. Then there was the competition of rival houses. The “Blue Boar” must have its “friendly” as well as the “Black Lion” over the way; and thus the number of clubs, as well as of public-houses, increased beyond the requirements of the village or parish, and deterioration was the natural result; and this was the humorous way in which the past generation acquired the habit of thrift, of which nowadays we hear so much.

It is very hard to be thrifty. He who would become so has to fight against tremendous odds. Let me illustrate my case by my own unpleasant experiences. I had a friend who was a mining broker. One day I had been studying the late Captain Burton’s valuable work on Brazil, which seemed to me a country of boundless resources and possibilities. The next day when I got into the train to go to town, there was my friend the broker. I talked with him about Brazil in a rather enthusiastic strain. He agreed with everything I said. There was no such place in the world, and I could not do better than buy a few General Brazilian shares. They were low just at that time, but if I were to buy some I should be certain to make ten shillings a share in a month, at any rate, and by a fortunate coincidence he had a few hundreds he had bought for an investment, and as a friend he would let me have a few. I am not a speculating man. The fact is I have never had any cash to spare; but was tempted, as our Mother Eve was by the old serpent, and I fell. I bought a few General Brazilians. As soon as I had paid for them there came a call for a shilling a share, and a little while after another call, and so it went on till the General Brazilians went down to nothing. Shortly after this my friend left the neighbourhood. He had got all his acquaintances to invest in shares, and the neighbourhood was getting unpleasant for him. He began life in a humble way; he now lives in a fine place and keeps his carriage, but he gets no more money out of me, though occasionally he did send me a circular assuring me of an ample fortune if I would only buy certain shares which he recommended. I may have stood in my own light, as he told me I did, but I have bought no more mining shares since.

Again, take the case of life assurance. Every one ought to insure his life when he marries. Like a wise man, I did, but like a fool I took the advice of a friend who recommended me a society which paid him a commission for his disinterested and friendly advice. After a time it declared a bonus which, instead of receiving in cash, I thought it better to add to the principal. In a few years, that insurance society was wound up. After the affairs of the company had been carefully investigated at an enormous and surely unnecessary expense by a distinguished firm of City accountants, another company took over our policies, marking them about a fourth of their original value. My bonus was not even added to my principal; and now, being too old to go anew into a life assurance company, a paltry sum is all I can look forward to to leave my family on my decease. It is really very ludicrous the little games played by some of these insurance companies. It is not every one who raises the cry of thrift who is anxious to promote that saving virtue. It is too often the case that even the professed philanthropist, feeling how true it is that charity begins at home, never troubles himself to let it go any further. We have Scriptural authority for saying that one who neglects to provide for his own house has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. We are abundantly justified, then, in looking after the cash. A great philosopher remarked that there are times when a man without money in his pocket may find himself in a peculiarly unpleasant position. It was, I think, Hazlitt who said it, and he was right. Be that as it may, it is a melancholy truth many of us have learned by experience. I can send to gaol the poor wretch who in the street picks my pocket, but the company promoter who offers me a premium for thrift, and then robs me of my all, or as much of it as he can lay hold of, gets off scot free. Friendly societies, as they are called, are on this account often to be much suspected. The story of one that smashed up is interesting and amusing. The chief promoter early in life displayed his abilities as a rogue. He became a letter-carrier, only to lose his situation and undergo a severe term of imprisonment for stealing letters. Subsequently, he entered the service of an Assurance Company, but had eventually to be dismissed. Then he got a new character, and started afresh as a Methodist preacher. Afterwards he founded a friendly society, by means of which he raised large funds for the benefit of himself, and apparently no one else.

Let me give another case out of my own personal experience. Last year I received a prospectus of a company that was formed to purchase the business of a firm which had an immense number of shops engaged in carrying on a business in various parts of the metropolis. A firm of accountants reported that the gross returns of the firm in 1894 amounted to over £103,000, and it was added that the profit of the company would admit of annual dividends at the rate of nine per cent., and allow of £1,300 for the expenses of management and reserve. It was further shown that a considerable saving of expenditure could be effected, which would ensure an additional dividend of three per cent. Well, the thing looked so feasible that I wrote for and obtained five shares, thinking I had done a sensible thing. A few months afterward a West-end firm offered me a large number of shares at par, stating that the company were about to pay a dividend, and that the profit on the year’s earnings would be some fifty per cent. However, I did not accept the promising offer, and I thought no more of the matter. In January of this year a gentleman sent me a circular offering me shares at a shilling under par, assuring me that the company was about to pay a dividend of ten per cent. in the course of the next week. Again I declined to increase my holding, and it is well I did, as no dividend has been paid, although the circular stated that the business was of “a most profitable nature,” and “sure to considerably increase in value in the course of a few months.” Since then a Manchester firm has twice written to me to offer the pound shares at sixteen shillings each. These tempting offers I have declined, and the promised dividend seems as far off as ever. Surely outside brokers who put forward such lying statements ought to be amenable to law, as well as the promoters of the company itself. To my great disgust, since the above was written I have received another letter from another outside firm, offering me fifty shares in the precious company at thirteen shillings a share. The writers add, as the dividend of ten per cent. will be paid almost immediately, they are well worth my attention. I suppose this sort of thing pays. The worst of it is that the class thus victimised are the class least able to bear a pecuniary loss. I happen to know of a case in which a man with an assumed name, trading at the West End, gained a large sum of money—chiefly from clergymen and widows—by offering worthless shares, certain to pay large dividends in a week or two, at a tremendous sacrifice. As a rule the victims to this state of things say nothing of their losses. They are ashamed when they think how easily they have been persuaded to part with their cash. It is time, however, that public attention should be called to the matter, that the eyes of the public were opened, and that the game of these gentry were be stopped.