the community may be withheld for many years, after which we, or our successors, shall wonder at the stupidity or the neglect which permitted a measure of such importance to be so long cast aside, we must take the existing state provisions for investing the savings of the humbler classes. We are satisfied that to do the working man full justice, and rescue him from the temptations of spending on present indulgence, the most attractive species of investment should be supplied him. To have a few pounds to his credit in a savings' bank, is a thing to be desired by him. We should, however, wish to give him an object suitable to his means and position, which would possess for him greater attractions than the exact sum which he can command. The attendant behind a counter has an ambition, and an object to save for-to stand in his own shop, and sell his own goods. It is thus through the different gradations of the middle class; the workman should have the means of turning his few pounds, should have something more to interest him, than receiving 3 per cent. per annum. A boy of twelve or fourteen, who has enough to eat and drink, and to dress himself, and has no care or fear for these things, as the workman in an improved condition of his class, would have no fear about procuring them; but if you want the boy to save his pocket money, you must give him an object for which he is to save it, other than the mere possession of the money. Whether it be a cricket bat, or a bow and arrows, or a gun, or a pony, if he can see that by economizing and saving his pocket money, any one of these things which he desires may be attained in a certain time, the money which would go weekly to the fruit woman and the pastry cook will be hoarded. It has been remarked that we are all but grown children, and without meaning to detract. from the intelligence or sense of the laboring class, we should wish that some desirable as well as attainable object were set before them, to be gained by their self-denial and saving. The same nature that induces the school-boy to deny himself in order to procure a toy, actuates all, from the candidate for the wool-sack, to the man who is struggling to stand behind his own counter; until, however, some changes are made in our existing laws, it is impossible for the humble man to take part in any association either of his fellow-laborers by themselves, or with some other capitalists, for the purpose of carrying on that trade in which he is employed. Taking the

existing provisions for investing the savings of the working man, imperfect and unsatisfactory as they are in principle, we will find in them the most grievous neglect and mismanagement. With regard to the savings' banks, we think there is one terrible defect, one also of a kind likely to lead to the most disastrous consequences. In many instances it has been found that the funds have been made away with, and that the poor people who had placed their money there, never doubting for a moment that a bank constituted by an act of the Legislature especially for their benefit, would provide every necessary safeguard for their protection, and that they were guaranteed by Government for their stability, and seeing several of the wealthiest and most respectable people of the locality named as trustees or managers, yet have been robbed, through the neglect or misconduct of the officials. Independent of the grievous loss which such defalcations must have been to the depositors, and the misery which it must have entailed, important as those are, the injury which is thereby done to the class, and the demoralizing effect, cannot be over estimated. What can the people of that neighbourhood trust, when they find that some of their fellows who have been thrifty and self-denying, working late and early, refusing to join in the days of idleness and parties of pleasure, the daily pot of beer, and glass of spirits, and by these means have scraped together a few pounds, are robbed of their small earnings, and told by a Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Government has done all in its power, and that Government is in no way, and never was responsible? Why saving is a farce; what are we to do with it? Where are we to put it? If the savings' banks are not safe, what place can be? Let us enjoy ourselves, and spend as we earn; we may as well enjoy our glass and pipe, as pay our little savings into those places, to be robbed and laughed at. We have no hesitation in stating, without offering any opinion as to how far the Government had made itself legally liable for those banks, or with what success it may shift the responsibility from its own shoulders, that it was most discreditable to avail itself of these means to answer the clamors of the poor people, and that the guilt of those who permitted such banks to be organized, without taking the most jealous and extreme precautions for the protection of the poor and ignorant class for whom they were intended, is only equalled by the ill judgment which has juggled with the depositors.

It

would be difficult to estimate the amount of harm which has been done; and if Government, by its restrictive laws deprives the man of small capital, whether it be five-andtwenty, or five hundred, pounds, of the means of satisfactorily investing that money, let it at least provide, and with all expedition, some place of deposit where the hard earned wages of toil may be safe. It would be impossible, within reasonable limits, to enter on the practical details of the many questions adverted to in this essay. We must then content ourselves with stating, while on this subject, that there are the seeds of much good in those annuities guaranteed by Government, and which seem to us to adapt themselves to the wants and wishes of the working classes. Although we fear that such investments will never become popular, yet if their regulations were better known, (and some steps for this purpose should be taken,) they would be very highly valued.

In treating of the question of Limited Liability in Partnerships, we have considered this question of investing the savings of the laboring class, and adduced trustworthy evidence as to the salutary effects, both in a moral and social point of view, which have followed from the associations of working men with capitalists in other countries, especially in the United States of America.

This question of co-operation has been very fully considered by Mr. Morrison, in his eleventh and twelfth chapters, and his views upon this, as upon most other topics discussed by him, seem to us very correct, reasonable, and fair. In entering upon the subject, he takes care that the co-operation which he refers to, and which is the associating of capital or labor, or both, by the working men, for the purpose of engaging in trade, which individually their funds would be quite inadequate for, should not be confounded with the communistic notion of co-operation, which is as impracticable as all communist theories-that all the members of a community should work for the common benefit, without possessing, or being able to possess, any private property. Co-operation, in its proper signification, means nothing more than the extension of the partnership principle. It interferes in no way with the rules of Political Economy, or in other words, with the natural laws which regulate human industry and capital. The different species of co-operations may be divided into four classes. Those in which the employer furnishes all the capital, paying

a fixed minimum rate of wages, and dividing the surplus profits, after the payment of all expenses and interest on the capital engaged, between himself and his work people, in some proportion previously agreed on. Secondly-Those in which the workmen should be possessed of some small funds which they should put into the business with their employers' larger capital, who should continue to manage the business, and for which they should receive, according to the amount of their share, a proportion of the profits in addition to their wages, as now paid. Thirdly-Where the working men should associate themselves with a capitalist who would be a dormant partner, and they should conduct and carry on the manufacture by themselves. And lastly-Where they should carry on the business without the intervention of either an active or dormant capitalist partner, upon their own associated funds. Although we should agree with Mr. Morrison, in thinking that the most desirable form of co-operation is that in which the workmen. should continue to receive their wages as at present, with liberty to embark their savings in the carrying on the trade, and to receive a share of the profit, yet we must hold that he has not considered with sufficient favor the case in which the working man, who possessed no savings, and was thus unable to have such a direct interest in the profits, as would require no education to teach him the advantage of, should receive some low rate of wages such as would barely suffice for his maintenance, and at the end of the year, such a share of the profits as might be mutually agreed on.

It is true that there would be many difficulties in carrying out this plan, and many objections may be raised to it. We think, however, that Mr. Morrison has over-estimated the draw backs, and under-estimated the advantages of such a system. It is admitted that with clerks and shopmen of superior intelligence and character, whenever it has been tried, it has been found to answer well for both parties, and to adjust without any trouble the rate at which such zealous and attentive employés should be paid. Although it cannot be denied that the share of each individual, when there are a great number to be paid in this way, must be very small, and consequently the stimulus to attention and industry little or none in proportion with that which is imparted to the head clerk or shopman; yet it must have a very considerable effect upon a man, especially when it is borne in mind, that a pound is of as

much importance to the laborer as five or ten are to the clerk. Nor is the advantage to the manufacturer to be confined to each individual exerting himself, but the surveillance which men would keep over each other, the anxiety to let nothing go to loss or be injured, the feeling of identity of interest with the employer, must be taken into account. The chief objections urged to this species of co-operation are the difficulty of fixing on the proportion of profits to be received by such laborers, the trouble of getting rid of an individual who has an accruing interest in the profits of the year, the likelihood of undue interference on the part of those who would be, according to our existing law, partners in the concern, and the irksome necessity of communicating the whole affairs of the business to such a number, for the purpose of satisfying them as to what the profits of the year really amounted to. Now the first, which is really the great difficulty of all these cases, and one the most severely felt by a capitalist, might be dealt with in the same way as if a capitalist were about lending money to a number of working men to carry on business while he himself should remain a dormant partner. A certain rate of interest say five or six per cent. might be in the first place guaranteed, under all circumstances to the capitalist. It might then be agreed on, what proportion of the profits he should receive, although in arriving at a conclusion upon that subject, some difficulty might be found; we think that the working man would be liberal in coming to an arrangeement, and the guaranteeing of a fair rate of interest would put the capitalist in a position to say what additional remuneration he should receive for the use of his capital. Again, the improper interference of some of the ill-disposed workmen, and the assertion of their rights as partners, might very easily be made the subject of legislative provision, abrogating our present inconvenient rule of partership, to that extent, and depriving such men of the privilege which they would now have of bringing the whole firm into Chancery, to compel an account if their claim amounted to but £5. The taking of the annual accounts might be delegated to some three of their number, to be elected by all for that purpose, whose auditing should exclude all question. The difficulty, however, that strikes us, is not so much the inconveniencies attending such a system, but the fact that from the existing law of partnership, which interferes with the association of