premiums of £15 each.  On the Stoke Newington estate, belonging to the National, premiums of £30 and even of £40 have been realised.  At the Gospel Oak estate, belonging to the St. Pancras Society, allotments which cost £20 each have been let off on building leases of 50s. per annum each.  Greater sums have been made—but we would rather understate than overstate our case.

We have inspected returns from one hundred and twenty societies, and in every case the allotments have realised a handsome premium.  Yet, in the face of all this, articles have recently appeared in Chambers’s Journal and the Edinburgh Review, deprecating these societies as investments.  The Edinburgh Reviewer says:—“Notwithstanding this rapid popularity however; notwithstanding, also, the high authorities which have pronounced in their behalf, we cannot look upon these associations with unmixed favour; and we shall be surprised if any long time elapses without well-grounded disappointment and discontent arising among their members.  However it may be desirable 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 adequate pecuniary advantages 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 very difficult for him to let for any sufficient remuneration.  In many cases a barren site will be his only reward for £50 of savings; 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.”  Of course we do not affirm that a badly-conducted society will pay in spite of mismanagement.  We believe it will do nothing of the kind, and that discontent will arise; but facts show that the reviewer is wrong; that the allotments cost less than he supposes; that thus they offer a better return for his money than the allottee can get in any other way.  Numerous as these societies are, multitudinous as are their members, extensive as have been their dealings—no one yet has found fault with them as a means of investment.  Indeed, every day they have come to be more and more regarded in this light alone.  Where, we ask, can a man make more by his shilling a-week than by putting it in a Freehold Land Society?  This is the question which every man should ask himself; and if he does this, we can await with satisfaction the result.  It is easy to imagine difficulties, but we turn to the testimony of facts.  That is unanimously in its favour.  The present time is void of all political interest.  There are no great struggles, and no great hopes and aims.  England seems satisfied with coalitions.  Yet this precisely is the time when the Freehold Land Movement finds most favour with the public.  The reason is obvious.  The times are good.  The public has money to invest, and the public finds no such desirable investments as those offered by the Movement; hence it is the societies flourish; hence it is they gain the hearty support of all who can only spare a little, but who would put a little by against a rainy day.

V.—MOVEMENT CONSIDERED POLITICALLY.

But we may be told, politically the movement has been a failure.  Our answer is, it has been nothing of the kind.  It is true, and we state the fact more in sorrow than in anger, that Messrs. Newdegate and Spooner still represent North Warwickshire; but it is also clear that whilst at the election previous to the last Mr. Spooner had, in the Birmingham district, a majority of 196, at the last election, in consequence

of the operation of the Freehold Land Societies of that district, he was actually in a minority of 395.  But let us look nearer home.  At the recent election for Middlesex, Bernal Osborne was returned, after a severe struggle, by a majority of 195.  Now, when we recollect that the National alone has purchased 152 acres in Middlesex, and that each acre is capable, on an average, on subdivision, of making five votes—when we also remember that the remaining London societies have purchased between them another hundred acres in the same county—it is impossible not to feel, even supposing all the allotments have not been taken up, that out of the 250 acres thus cut up into allotments came the majority which returned Bernal Osborne as the champion of Liberalism and Free Trade.  We repeat, it is impossible not to feel that if it had not been for the Freehold Land Societies, to the disgrace and shame of the county, Lord Maidstone would have misrepresented Middlesex.  Then we remember that Mr. Locke King was but 400 ahead of Mr. Antrobus at the Surrey election last summer—we must also feel that that gentleman has some reason for thankfulness to Freehold Land Societies.  If we pass to Herts, we shall feel that it sadly failed in its duty by returning three pledged Protectionists; but when we recollect that the National has purchased 300 acres in that county, we cannot but be persuaded that there is “a good time coming” for our friend Mr. Lattimore and the Herts Reformers.  At the last election, the lowest of the Protectionist candidates—the quondam Reformer, Sir Bulwer Lytton—had 2,190 votes: the highest of the Liberals had 2,043.  It is thus as clear as anything can be that a very little effort will make Hertfordshire for ever safe.  It is in the power of any two hundred persons desirous of a good investment to do so at once.  Essex, the home of Sir J. Tyrrel and the delight of W. B., we regret to write, is not so easily liberalised.  North Essex at present is impregnable.  Its squires, as Barry Cornwall ironically writes,

      “With brains made clear
By the irresistible strength of beer,”

are beyond salvation: there is no hope for this generation of them.  But South Essex is not so hopelessly lost to the people’s cause.  It is true that last summer it did unseat Sir E. N. Buxton, and return Sir W. B. Smijth by a majority of 600; but the National has purchased 242 acres in that county, and out of that number can create 1,210 electors.  Evidently, then, there is hope for Essex yet.  But we need not continue this scrutiny.  The people have placed within their hands the very privilege they so much desire.  They need not wait for Government to emancipate them; they can emancipate themselves.  For instance, the National will put any person desirous of the same in possession of a county qualification for North or South Essex, East or West Kent, Hertfordshire, West Sussex, North Hants, North Lancashire, or Middlesex.  If, as some of the knowing ones maintain, we shall soon have a general election, of course the sooner one is put on the register the better.  If not, the purchaser can take no harm: he will have his quid pro quo; he will have placed his money in that best of all banks, the land, and will have become one of that important class appealed to on certain occasions as the “Electors of the United Kingdom.”  Heaven helps those who help themselves.  Instead of the people waiting for Government to extend the franchise, they can boldly help themselves.  No man deserves the electoral privilege who cannot purchase it by his own industry and self-denial.  At the present time, when provisions are cheap, when work is abundant, when wages are high and labour scarce, there is not a man in our streets who may not win the franchise if he has the will.  Half the men who brawled in low pot-houses, while their wives and children were starving, over their beer, for