CURRENT LITERATURE.
Better Days for Working People. By the Rev. W. a Blaikie. (Alexander Strahan and Co.)—A well-intentioned little book, addressed to the working classes. Amid a mass of good advice there is nothing so good as that contained in the chapter entitled "Make the most of your Money." If a workman, by which Mr. Blaikie must mean a mechanic, were to lay by from the age of eighteen 8s. a week, in- vesting them in the savings bank, he would have at thirty upwards of 100L ; and, practically, the difference between having nothing and having 1001. is the difference between slavery and freedom. "It may sound strange," he continues, " for a minister of the Gospel to urge men to try to save money." We do not think so. "Depend on it," was the saying of a very sensible clergyman, " the next best thing for a labouring man after religion is a little money." It sounds much more strange in our ears that the fact that "in the Bible the highest honours of heaven are seen descending on the heads of working men" is a reason why working men should believe in it. It is, however, creditable to the author that he has the courage to say a good word for trades unions. He even leans to the opinion that they tend to raise the rate of wages, and is clear that they make employers more careful not to provoke a strike and more prompt to give the workmen a share in the profits of good times. The first necessity of one who sets himself to advise his inferiors is to show himself superior to-class prejudices.
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