The Value of Building Societies

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 3, 18 June 1885, Page 3

The Value of Building Societies

At an -annual meeting of the Finsburj (London) fyilding Society Mr Jorrens, M.P., said that there was a prevalent tendency to lay that nothing was secure, nothing worth having, except that which was Governmental. Ho. bad never been of that opiuion. He believed that institutions which were conceived and worthily supported by the people themselves- were morally, intellectually, and oven far better than institutions which bore the Government stamp. At the present .moment of almost unexampled depression and commercial perplexity — a moment when men's hearts failed them for fear of the changes which were coining' upon the face of the earth — building societies, unhelped by the State, and helping only one another by probity and perseverance of their members, possessed an mv -sted capital of £49,000.00, or 30- for .each man, woman, and child in tbe United Kindom. This was one of the" noblest proofs that the people were not unst for liberty ; it Was the noblest proof which could be afforded that when they had got it they made good use of it. Building societies, m his •pinion, had increasingly become guarantees for the ma\al and intellectual as well as. th? 'financial, progress of the people. The motion was adopted. — London 'Times/ '• .