The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-01 00:00:00

NEWSPAPEP
half-yearly meeting of this fund was held on Friday,
"the office, 24, Cecil-street, Strand ; Mr. C. L. Gruneisen
in the chair. The report, which was adopted on the motion
of the chairman, seconded by Mr. J. H. Doyle,t'stated
that the committee regarded the progress of the institution
as highly assuring. In their last report they spoke with
confidence of a large prospective increase in the number
of members. This anticipation has been realised by an
accession of 30 new members, shewing in the aggregate an
enrolment of 240, of whom 162 are resident in London,
and the remaining 78 in the country. The grants during
the past year amounted to £IGS, and the cases were of
such a character as to afforct conclusive proof of the
utility an 1 value of the institution. The annual
dinner took place at Willis's Rooms on the Gth June,
under the presidency of his Royal Highness the
Duke of Cambridge, and was in all respects a signal
success. The donations amounted to £l,OlO 195., A:625
of which NT :IA received at the close of the half•year, and
the balance is in progress of collection. This very mate-
rial increase of the society's funds was obtained at an
actual expenditure, immediately connected with the
dinner of £lO9 Gs. Ga. The investments, balance at the
bankers', and donations receivable, exclusive of the annual
income from members' subscripticm, amounted to £4,744
on the 30th June. Vacancies in the committee of manage.
meat having been filled up, votes of thanks were passed
to the president, vice-presidents, auditors, secretary and
chairman, and the proceedings terminated.

~~

PRICE.... ld.
STAMPRD 5d

TRADES UNIONS AND FREE LABOUR.

UNITED SOCIETY OF IRONMONGERS.

The following correspondence between Mr. William
Atherton, chairman of the directors of the Royal Liver
Friendly Society, and Mr. Tidd Pratt, Registrar of
Friendly Societies, London, has been published:—
" Royal Liver Friendly Society's Offices, 16, Prescot-strect,
Liverpool, July, 7th, 1868.
"Sir,—ln the report which appeared in the London
Standard of the 2nd inst. of the proceedings which took
place at the forty-second anniversary dinner of the United
Society of Ironmongers, held at the Freemasons' Tavern
on Monday, the Ist instant, it is stated that in replying
to the toast of your health you made the following
assertions :

" 'His experience of friendly societies was very large, and
the Society of Ironmongers was one of the best conducted
that came under his notice ; there were many that were
downright swindles. Among the latter were to be classed
more particularly some burial societies which insured
people from one day to eighty years old. They had agents
throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. One
in Liverpool bragged that it had 500,000 members, and the
expenses of that society were enormons. It received yearly
in shillings and pence £130,000. The commmittee con-
sisted of eight members, and according to the return
made to Parliament, each of these gentlemen received
£454 a year, or 20s. a day for his services. That statement
had since been corrected by a gentleman who said that
that amount had been increased to £520 a year, or £lO a
week. The treasurer received £650 or £670, and he (➢lr.
Tidd Pratt) considered this a downright swindle of the
poor man, because it was utterly impossible that if the
society's affairs were wound up the various members could
receive what they were entitled to.'

" As one of the committee of management of the Royal
Liver Friendly Society, I have to request you will inform
me whether you are correctly reported as having math the
above statement, and also whether the charges and insi-
nuations contained therein were intended by you to apply
to the directors or managers of the Royal Liver Friendly
Society, whose chief offices are in Liverpool. Awaiting
your reply, I am, Sir, oLediently yours,

" WILLIAM ATIIERTON.
".John Tidd Pratt, Esq., Friendly Socictics Offices,

Abingdon-street, London."
" London, July 9, 1868.
"Sir,--In reply to yours of the 7th inst., I have to in-
form you that I am not correctly reported in the state-
ment you refer to, and that the publication in the news-
paper was not with my authority, knowledge, or consent.
I take this opportunity of requesting you to send me a
copy of your last annual statement, as well as the amount
of the existing liabilities of your society.—Yours faith•
fully, " J. TIDD PRATT.
" W. Atherton, Esq., Royal Liver Society, Liverpool."
" Royal Liver Friendly Society's Offices, 16, Frescot-street.
Liverpool, July 9th, 186 S.
" Sir,—l am in receipt of your favour of the 13th inst.
It is to me a matter of great surprise that if you were
not correctly reported in the several newspapers in
which appeared the remarks imputed to you, and to which
I have in my former letter referred, you should for so
long a period have allowed them to pass uncontradicted,
thereby tacitly ada.itting their authenticity, and allowing
that which yuu now state to have been `incorrectly
reporte I ' to circulate widely on your authority tome and my
colleagues' serious injury. I cannot help remarking that
it is very unlikely that charges so grave should have been
gratuitously and without foundation reported as having
been made by you.
" Admitting your denial of these charges, I shall spare
neither cost nor trouble to trace to you their utterance, as
I do not feel at all disposed on your repudiation to attri-
bute to the newspaper press so wantonly cruel and
unfounded a charge of swindling as imputed to me and n:y
colleagues in the reports given of your after-dinner speech.
—I am, sir, obediently yours, " WILLIAM ATHERTON.
" John Tidd Pratt, Esq., Friendly Societies' Offices,
Abingdon-street, London." .

The retail price of flour and bread has been
reduced 2d. per peck and id. per loaf at Birmingham.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P,, and
Mrs. Gladstone and family, have left London for Hawar-
den Castle, Flintshire.

THE FINANCIAL REFOr.3I UNION.—The Finan-
cial Reform Union has held one of its serial meetings in
the Town Hall, Woolwich. Mr. Richard Moore presided.
There was a very crowded attendance. Mr. Noble, Mr.
Baxter LangleY, the chairman, and others addressed the
meeeing, and a branch of the association was formed for
Woolwich. The Financial Union has now in course of
circulation an address calling upon the representatives of
the people in the coming Parliament to inaugurate a reign
of financial economy. This address has, it is stated, been
most influentially signed.

THE QUE EN'S VISIT TO TIIE CONTINENT. —Wo
some time since mentioned the date of the Queen's de.
parture for a short residence in Switzerland, under the
advice of Sir William Jenner ; Lot the details have been
necessarily open to modification. Her Majesty will, as
we stated, take her departure from Osborne on Wednes-
day next, will stop a day, or part of a day, in Paris,
and will reach her residence at Lucerne on tl.e
Friday. The Queen, who will be accompanied by Sir
William Jenner, will maintain a strict incognito during
her residence, so that her Majesty may be enabled to
command a few weeks of comparative repose, which, with
change of air, is deemed highly necessary for her Majesty's
health. Lord Stanley will take his departure on the 6th ;
but will not " join" her Majesty in Paris. On the con-
trary, he will also spend a day in the French capital, pro.
bably seeing M. de Moustier, and will not arrive at Lucerne
until tlje Saturday,

The most remarkable events (says the Times) which have
recently occurred in connection with trades unions in
the metropolis have been the secession of a number of
the members of the Tailors' Protective Society from that
body and the formation by the secessionists of an inde-
pendent association, which aims at reconciling the in-
terests of employers and employed. The promoters of
the new Society allege that they have retired from the
Protective Association on account of the mal-administra.
tion of its funds during the strike of last year. At their
first meeting the chairman stated that during part of the
period alluded to, while the operatives were receiving an
insignificant " scale," the executive of the Protective
Societyy were not only drawing considerable salaries from
the funcle,btit were also charging considerable sums to the
treasurers for travelling expenses. The chairman on the oc-
casion to which we have referred, also stated that while
the principles of the new society were .favourably consi-
dered by a large number of the masters, they had been re-
jected or deprecated by most of the men to whom they
were submitted. The meeting was interrupted by a section
of the Protective. Society, who had evidently attended
for the purpose of obstructing the proceedings, and the
chairman was addressed by some of the most prominent
among their number in language so extravagant and scar-
rilous as to afford a significant example of the tyrannical
action of 'those who inveigh with such vehemence against
the oppression which they urge they are compelled to suffer
at the hands of their employers. One young man who had
supported a resolution recommending the meeting to sup.
port the new organisation was evidently so terrified by the
manifestation of feeling evinced against it that be retracted
all that he said, on the ground that he did not under-
stand the purport of the proposition of which he was
advocating the adoption. The council of the new society
will, we understand, comprise an equal number of masters
and operatives. Though it has been sought to frustrate
its institution by the most strenuous opposition, the
numerous accessions which have been recently made to
its ranks afford hope that success will follow the efforts of
the men who are opposing those who are endeavouring to
secure the monopoly of labour by the most unscrupulous
agencies.

•
rt
• ,A. 4:
trirts
)
dc:,,,,1f-6,-te'r • •
'•-•• .
•
-
• 4
"7g
FFAAiY'-fYay.,.4
10, ,
49. g
-.484` •
Vlirataikzqt;il
_f„zerr. 7J ,