A GREAT NATIONAL MOVEMENT.
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 pounds 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 pounds, 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 pounds 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.