The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-12-01 00:00:00

FRIENDLY SOCIE TI &S.

It is a inatterof very common observation, that the
poor de kindest to the poor. " It makes only one
mouth more," said a poor widow who &filed a
neighbour's destitute orphan to her own large and ill.
fed family. Thou oho stand the nearest to poverty,
perhaps not unnaturally, feel for it the mod. It is,
booever, not so commonly known that those who stand
nearest to poverty are one another's best help-rs to help
themselves. Few persons are fully aware of the seek
extent to which self-help spinet sicknem, old age,
infirmity, and bereavement has b,en developed eniong
the working elusea of this country. Organizatirms for
this purpose exist all over the country, to an estent
which gives them national importance. The;r member'
probably amount to three millions and • half, their
annual contribution' to about five millions, and their
reserve funds to twelve millions. These figures represent
an aggregate of organizations with which nearly the
whole of the working classes must be directly or
Indirectly connect. d. They represent the self-help of
the people. The velue of these Institutions depends, of
dune, upon their solvency. When they are entirely
mutual, and are economically conducted. as vast
numbers of them de, their operation is simple and safe.
But the report of the Registrit of Friendly Soneties,
Kr. Tidd Pratt, suggests the necessity of a public
inquiry into the condition of such societies generally.
'lbe people bare no means of knowing which are
insolvent and which are flourishing. They know that
the rules are certified, though that is bet a align'
protection; they probably see names they know as
trustees or patrons, names which are too often lent out
of good feeling and without inquiry ; but what they do
not get to know is, that the expenses of management
, are so great as to render it impossible that the society
should eventually meet its engagements. These societies
may be divided into two classes; those which are
mended by the members, and those which are managed
by officials who are practically irresponsible. The first
dam are usually donomically condoated, though there
is often much unnecessary expenditure for beer, or
regalia, or procession' ; the other class are oharaderised
by the most wanton extravagance. The fird are Friendly
, Societies pore and simple, and are conducted by and for
the members; the other are Burial and Insurance
Societies, and are conducted primarily by and for the
official', and arc many of them on the verge of
' insolvency. These Burial Societies are, in fact, insurance
societies in which lives are taken from one day old to
eighty years. with premiums commencing from one-half-
penny • week, and in which no guarantee for good
management exist,. None of than. Burial Societies
have dared to inform the Registrar what their
liabilities are ; but he has gathered from their reports
the most startling revelations of their condition. The
Royal Liver Society of course figures in this report.
The committee-men of this society—Friendly Society
though it profeesee to be—receive salaries of £520 per
annum each; a larger sum than is paid to any
governor, director, or committee-man of the mod
meperous insurance offices in England. This society
Las some 400.000 members; its annual income last year
was £146,247: it paid to members for sickness and
deaths, 1:89.873 ; and the cost of management was
£54,983; thirty-seven per cent of its receipt., and
fifteen and niosipence for every pound disbursed bene-
ficially to the members. Its property was £132,372; of
Its liabilities nothing weld be leerned—that they were
ten times its property is probably a mode-
rate estimate. Another such society is the Victoria
Legal, which also has its headquarters at Liverpool.
The accounts of this society for the year ending May,
1868, showed and income of £32,954; payments for
funerals, £12,806; and espouses of managemeot.
£15,365; so that for every pound four and fourpenoe
was paid In bonuses and salaried to the officials. The
property of the society amounts to i:15,832, the number
of member' to 127,284. The savants of ten other
Burial Societies are subjected by Mr. Pratt to a similar
analyse. and we give the result in his own words : - •
" It will therefore appear that these twelve Burial
Societies (and there are numerous others) consist of
more than one million insurers ; the amount of the in-
surances cannot be less than three million pounds stir.
beg. that their gross receipts from the insurer' in the
last year were £247,935 ; the amount paid for benefits
...wed, £1314.151 ; the amount of expenses for man &ie.
meet, £94,763 ; and that the whole of their funds,
including the value of their property and money in
the hoods of treasurers, agents, and collootory, is
only £181,166, or the amount of throe-quarters of a
year's premiums." The benefits of such societies as
these are principally to the officials. They are oily
kept afloat by the constant accession of new members.
The liabilities fall upon them gradually at first., but as
the society gets older more and more of the liabilities
come upon it, and it must eventually succumb to them.
Every year such societies are coming to an end, some-
tones quietly, for the suffering poor make but little
noise, sometimes with a crash, as when the Confident
and Friend-in-Need Societies came to ruin. It is
Impossible to estimate the disappointment and suffering
these failure' create. The affliction falls upon the
thrifty and deserving poor, and they bear it in 'tend.
Widows find that the little portion saved by an indus-
trious husband is swept away, sick men who have denied
themselves in health to have something in the time of
need find that their savings have been thrown away,
and the heaviest possible discouragement is thus put on
those virtues of economy and thrift which it is 11104 Of
all desirable to encourage and foster. These extravagsat
officials are enemies of the State who should be looked
after. There are plenty of men who trade upon the
vices of the people, and who are restrained in so doing;
thee" men de worse, they trade upon the people's
virtues. It is eridept that the whole subject of Friendly
Societies must undergo thorough inquiry, and be made
the subject of legislation. Tleia is not a matter in which
the people should be left to take care of theoisrlvea.
A kind of quasi adetion is already given to the worst
of these societies by the certification of their rules, but
this question of solvency is not so much one of roles as
one of management. The tables may be camel, and
the rates may be all that is desirable, but the biome

of the 'aridity may still be eqaandered, and ns
check on the squandering be possible. Mr. Pratt
instances one society in which there is the usual
rule that no trustee shall be in receipt of any
emolument from the society. but in which one of the
trustees bu • salary of E 156 • year as president, and
seversl others have salaries as oemusitteemen. In this
ease the president is also one of the collectors.r.eoeiving
a coin oi halloo for money which passes through his hands.
The guarantee of the die ebservence of the rule+ 15, 10
fact, of the feeblest hied. In many of these Boosts's
the aollectors receive twenty or teenty-five per ceot, of
the subscriptions they collect; and as their object is to
to collect as much as possible, they are often *ionises
and indifferent as to the observance of the formalities
which giee the eutocribs r a claim upon the funds.
Thousands of subscriptions are thus collected from
persons who are anti, ly ignorant of the rules of the
society of which they b live themselves to be members,
awl who, not having co .formel to those rules, find,
when any dispute or difficalty arises, that they are with-
out lesal standing in the society. In other eases
subscriptions st-ll continue to be paid to defunct
societies, and, is fact, every kind of injustice is in-
dicted on the honest poor by their means. Bat these
rue the abuses of what iann the whole, • noble organise-
Ilion of self-help. Friendly societies must be rescued
from the abases, and put upou firmer basis of legal
security. The people cannot themselves look into their
accounts and test their aluvency, end the Government
most undertake the duty for them. The Canadian
Government has in this matter set us an example.
It r.quires every such society to show it, condition
fully an its balance-sheet, and to have the whole of its
liabilities said suets published and verified annually.
We must do this at home if the friendly society system
is not to perish of extravegaoce and of the mistrust it
breeds.
N INCIDENT
BY •

A_ STORY