n hardly be expected to
save. But this is not the case with the artisans and labourers in the
manufacturing districts. They seldom earn less than a pound a week, and
often two pounds. The boys and girls, and sometimes the mother of the
family, also earn wages, so that when trade is brisk a family in
Manchester or Leicester, or other manufacturing town, will get
altogether L150 a year, or more. Some kinds of workmen, especially
coal-hewers, and iron-puddlers, earn twice that amount in good years,
and are in fact better paid than schoolmasters, ministers of religion,
and upper clerks. It is idle to say that the better-paid working men
cannot save, and though we cannot make any strict rule, it is probable
that #all who earn more than a pound (five dollars, or 25 francs) a
week, might save something#.

It is easy to prove this assertion by the fact that when a strike
occurs, men voluntarily live on a half, or a third of their ordinary
wages. Sometimes they will live for three or four months on 12 or 15
shillings a week, which is paid for their support by their trades-union,
or by other unions, which subscribe money to assist them. It is quite
common for workmen to pay #levies#, that is, almost compulsory
subscriptions of a shilling or more a week, to be spent by other workmen
who are #playing#, as it is called, during a long strike. Nobody wishes
working people to live on the half of their wages, but #if, for the
purpose of carrying on struggles against their employers, they can spare
these levies, it is evident that they could spare them for the purpose
of saving#. Then, again, we know that the money spent on drink is
enormous in amount; in this country it is about L140,000,000 a year, or
about four pounds a year for every man, woman, and child. To say the
least, half of this might be saved, with the greatest advantage to the
health and morals of the savers, and thus the working classes would be
able to lay by an annual sum not much less than the revenue of the
nation.

CHAPTER X.

TENURE OF LAND.

64. We have sufficiently considered the difficulties which exist
regarding #Labour# and #Capital#, two of the requisites of production,
and we will now turn to another part of political economy, and inquire
into the way in which #Land#, the third requisite, is supplied.

In different countries land is held in very different ways. It is a
matter of custom, and in the course of time customs slowly change. The
way in