The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-10 00:00:00

PROVIDENT SOCIETIES

During the last session a very important investigation
was conducted before the House of Lords, at the instiga-
tion of the Manchester Unity of the Order of Odd Fel-
lows, and a select committee of that house have printed
the evidence then given by several celebrated actuaries,
Messrs. Neison, Ansell, Griffiths Davies, and Finlaisons ;
and on the part of the Order, Messrs. William Benjamin
Smith and James Roe, principal officers, were examined.
The most material points of the printed report and evi-
dence are the statement by the Lords' Committee (page
5) that— . . .

" The Edinburgh and some other districts have already
adopted the high rate of contributions recommended by
Messrs. Wood and Neison (actuaries); and should the
central committee enforce similar scales in all the remain-
ing districts of the Unity, the Odd Fellows' Society would
be, in the words of one of the actuaries examined, the
greatest economical institution of modern times.
" Until, however, rules to the above effect have been
universally adopted by the Order, the committee (of the
Lords) would consider any special favour granted to the
society as an encouragement to young men to join the
body, with the foreknowledge (on the part of the above
committee) that the promises held out to them can never
be completely fulfilled." From such a disastrous delu-
sion, it appears the Lords' Committee revolted. The
allusion here seems to refer to important passages of the
evidence page 25, No. 155, wherein Mr. W. B. Smith
admits Mr. Neison's statement, to the effect that whereas
only 225. 9d. is now paid yearly by members in general,
that sum to secure solvency ought to be 395. 5d., or 16s.
Bd. yearly more than is paid. Viewing several parts of
this vast body as having begun their existence as far back
as 1814-15, with yearly augmenting numbers, it is difficult
to conceive how the lee-way is to be made up. Mr. Nei-
son, page 14, No: 48, states, that " Ten minutes' calcula-
tion will show any person from the original data, that if
the Order goes on even without augmenting its numbers,
* * * * there would be an ultimate deficiency of ten
millions of money ! " Also, that the initiation money
itself had amounted (without weekly contributions) to
£750,000, and that in 1845 they had only in all their
lodges .£700,000, which was now reduced to £600,000.
" For twenty-five years after the formation of the socie-
ties they should be storing up more than half the contri-
butions given to them ; and the contributions were more
than £250,000 a-year. So that instead of storing up their
contributions, all the contributions had actually been
squandered, and they were making inroads on the initia-
tion motley." (Page 14, No. 49.)
Mr. W. B. Smith's hope of obtaining a sound state of
monetary affairs is thus expressed (page 42) :—" If we can
get parliament to recognise us, and to give us a legal title,
the next step will be to induce, as far as we possibly can,
an influx of young members into the society, paying the
present amount of contribution." But after a time, when
a vast number of young members had joined, Mr. Smith
proposed to adopt " a graduated scale" according to the
age of the parties.

These proposals would be in effect that the young
members should pay for the old, but the question arises,
" who is to pay for them," when they get old ? The
whole subject is most important, and ought to be one of
justice rather than of delusive expedients.