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.