France, a still more considerable sum is invested by small capitalists. All depositors in the savings banks may instruct the authorities to invest their deposits in the funds free of charge. The amounts invested under the above regulations are shown in the subjoined state How simi lar facili The savings banks collect the dividends for the depositors. The amounts so collected in Paris yielded, according to the latest return, an average annual income of 17. 18. a year to each investor. In France, orders for the purchase and sale of rente are received by the Government treasury agents in the provinces, and their subordinates the local taxcollectors; and the limit of capital allowed to be purchased has been gradually reduced from an amount sufficient to bring in an annual dividend of 21. per annum to an investment producing only 2s. 6d. per annum. The French regulations for encouraging investties might ments by the masses of the population in the public funds merit the attention of our own Government. be pro vided by Govern The facilities provided in France could readily be our own created in the United Kingdom, through the instru- ment. mentality of the Post Office or the Inland Revenue Department. The invest the United Attention has been directed, in a recent article in Public theSaturday Review,' to the efforts made by Mr. ments in Sherman to give to the people of the United States States. the same facilities for investing in the Government funds which have been provided in France. smallest bond issued by the United States Government is for 50 dollars, or 107. sterling. Mr. Sherman desires to create facilities for the investment of a still smaller sum. He has accordingly determined to offer a part of the four per cent. loan in such a shape as would suit the humblest person who had money to put by. He does not issue a smaller class of bonds than those already known to American investors; but instead he offers interest-bearing certificates of the value of 10 dollars or 21. When five of these certificates are obtained, they may be exchanged for a fifty-dollar bond; but this exchange is not obligatory. stone's Mr. Gladstone's scheme for the creation of small Mr. Gladannuities was a most beneficial measure. It has small annuity enabled a workman, by depositing a small sum weekly, scheme. to secure a certain income to commence at an age when he will probably be incapacitated from severe physical toil. Railway companies would do well to create a certain proportion of 17. shares, to be reserved for distribution among the numerous body of servants in their employment. The rate of interest on deposits in the Post Office increase of Post Office Savings Proposed Savings Banks should be increased. It could be done interest in without loss to the public exchequer. It is pointed out, in an article in the Industrial Review,' published in December 1878, that while the Post Office banks are greatly in favour in England and Wales, and are not neglected in Ireland, they find but moderate custom in Scotland. In that country for 17. in the new banks there are 127. in the older ones. The latter afford exactly 9s. 5d. per cent. more interest than the former, which probably attracts the very thrifty among the poor; while local predilections may tend to the same result.' This question has recently been discussed, and a simple and effective method of dealing with it has been propounded, in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette.' 'The question of securing profitable investments for the poorer classes is once more suggested by a correspondent of the "Daily News," who wishes to add 1 per cent. to the 2 per cent. allowed by the Post Office on the savings in his own village, so as to bring the rate of interest up to that obtainable on mortgage. It is certainly to be regretted that sound investments bearing a higher rate of interest than 2 per cent. are not, as in France and in the United States, brought within the reach of every class. Yet the working classes may congratulate themselves that some of the loans bearing high interest, which have found favour with their richer countrymen, were not offered to them in small lots. There seems to be no reason, however, why Consols, or the Indian, colonial, and municipal loans, should not be offered to the poorer classes in small sums. Either the Post Office Savings Bank might take up portions of such loans for this purpose, and divide them for the convenience of those who are only able to make small savings, or a special agency might be formed to the like end. By charging a small percentage above the rate at which the securities were bought, and working through an old-established life assurance agency (presuming the Post Office not to be available), the whole machinery would soon be selfsustaining. In this country a whole stratum of small investors remains at present untapped; and the plan here suggested would not only tend to promote thrift, but in the case of Indian and colonial loans would enlarge the interest of the community in the concerns of the Empire.' CHAPTER XII. SOCIALISM. the exist ence of Socialism. Excuse for FAR be it from me to extenuate the invariable folly and the occasional crime of the Socialistic machinations on the Continent. But it is idle to denounce the conduct of men whose fault consists in the concoction of schemes for the reconstitution of a society in which they find their own lot very hopeless and unenviable, merely because they exhibit an absurd ignorance of political economy. Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said that 'men leading laborious lives, relieved by little in the shape of enjoyment, give willing ear to the doctrine that the State should provide them with various positive advantages and gratifications. The much-enduring poor cannot be expected to deal very critically with those who promise them, gratis, pleasures. We must not, therefore, blame the working classes for being ready converts to Socialistic schemes.' Freedom of England from Socialist errors. It is not the least among the numerous claims of the English workmen as a body to the favourable appreciation of the public that they have never been led astray by those theoretical denunciations of property which culminated at Paris in the Commune, which were exhibited in the railway riots in the United States, |