New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-07-27

selyeg the treasurer Is Responsible IOr inc sale
deposit of money in bank, and the board OF
directors are bound by the rules to see that no
man is cheated in the property. The exact
number of persons in England enjoying their
benefit cannot be easily ascertamed, but 1t Is
prodigious. In Leeds there are ten of these So
cieties, with an aggregate of $4,000 members.
The largest Of these has $3.50 paying members,
and is every day increasing These members
represent shares to the amount of $3,3S6,OOO.
Tt has an average of $4,000 on hand, and is
ready to advance money to any new member
on his application, taking security on the
property, until such time as the mem
ber's weekly installments and interest
shall become equivalent to the price Oh tne
house. Rochdale has now 4S Societies, all
on the terminating system, and Manchester
tie great hive of busy producers, has no less
tlan 397 In the populous city Of Birmingham
there are but 6; but such is the system, the
simplicity, and enormous extent to which they
are appropriating to poor wOrkinRmen homes
and comforts, that nowhere in England ID the
success of Building Societies better illustrated.
In the City of London the number far exceeds
a thousand. However incredible it may seem,
it is nevertheless true that $1,000 houses have
been built and appropriated to working peo-
ple by these ubiquitous friendly societies IN
the three cities of Liverpool, Manchester, ana
Birmingham; while in Birkenhead, Bradford,
Nottingham, WolverhamptOn-in fact nearly
all the northern and midland cities and towns
of England, swarming like hives with hardy
workers-the solid, self-helping system OF mu-
tua and social Cooperation, with Its merry
cheer and ruddy competence, Is supplantlng
the old pitiful systems of charity, beggarly
duplication, and social depression that horny
the traveller in the agricultural counties OF
Southern England and Ireland. The enormous
total Of G2570,OOO, or about $18,OOO,OOO cur
rency, is known to have been already spent IN
erecting homes for these hardy co0perators.
What a mighty influence such fund invested
in such a manner would exert toward de-
thronng the great cankering monopolles Oh
landlords in the United States
These Building Societies are largely facill-
tated by the great Land Associations of Blrk-
enhead, Wolverhampton, birmingham, and Lon
don, whose extraordinary success is known.
These Land Societies are the cooperation OF
workingmen to buy large tracts of land at the
lowest possible figure for cash and divide them
ND into lots for members to build on. They
are the purest example of that deeply ecOnomi-
cal system of buying at wholesale and retailing
"at WhOlesale prices"-a system now adopted
by all sound thinkers as the fundamental basis
of political economy, because 1T leaves no room
for intermediary peddlers, who produce nothing
for the worlds wealth, but impOyerish those
who do by the grasping and greedy scheme OF
monopoly. The Land Societies of New ork
and Brooklyn have adopted this system IN
principle, and are faithfully carrying it out
The four English societies. whatever might have
been the design of their founder, Richard Cob
den, really work a plurality of results. Con-
nected with the great Land Society OF Blrm-
ingham, for instance, are four Building
Associations. The member, for an as
tonishngly low price, is first furnished with
his lot of freehold land, whereupon the Build
ing Society erects his neat cottage, and by
paying in monthly installments what the rent
of such place would otherwise have cost he
becomes its owner in about ten years, with the
additional advantage of right to Parlia-
mentary vote which is as sure to be cast Tor
democracy and reform as that he is good
coOperator Here is the true secret of En-
glands solid march in the direction OF progress
social emancipation of her industrial classes
The Birmingham and WolyerhamptOn Land
Societies have already appropriated $1,000 beau
tiful lots and cottages to workingmen and
women, while the largest cooperation in the
word-the British Land Company of London,
with its net profits of 20 per cent, its 1850
members, and its immense capital of $4,000
OOO-is cutting up magnificent estates into lots,
buying more, and turning them with such
rapidity over to its members as already to
threaten to exhaust the realm of its resources
in freehold property. Such is the true opera
ton of the great pOlitico-fnancial revolution
of Great Britain.
MN nrmncp IrS ETRR SREK 10 pRERENT