PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2323, 14 September 1881, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

WELLINGTON, September 13.. Tie reports and balance sheets if the Incorporated Agricultural and Pastoral Societies were laid on the table to-night. They comprise Auckland, Poverty Bay, Taranaki, Patea, Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, and the West Coast, Wanganui. Elle°mere, Ashbnrton, Canterbury Timarn, North Otago, Clutha, Southland, and Western District.

Memoranda in connection with the New Plymouth Harbor Board inquiry, referred to in the speech of Major Atkinson on the reading of the New Plj month Harbor Board Commission Bill, were laid on the table by Major Atkinson to night. They contain very long and elaborate calculations, the result of which is that the colony would lose .£17,000 to .£22,000 by taking over the liabilities and assets of the Board, and that, according Blackett, if the work be carried! out to a point marked vy on the plana the deficiency would be only .£37,856. A report on the sickness, mortality, and the contingencies experienced by friendly societies during the five years ended 31st December, 1577, was presented to-day. It consists mainly of tabular masses of ficures, the general purport of which is that there is a steady iacreise of elderly members, which m ; ght bo expected, and this miy be expected still tj increase, consequently that the demands on the societies' funds will ha greater in the future than hitherto. It is shown that o" the societies which charge a uniform contribution of sixpi nr-e weekly to tk-j tick and funeral fund, little lr.are <hr.u 20 per cent, of the members pay what can be reasonably hoped will prove adequate. ihe liabilities owing to resent admi*sipn_ of members in lower than among EngiUh rocieties. The New Zealand societies also shew le:s sickthan the English, a!=o a smaller percentage cf ?ick members, but a longer average of sickness among those actually sick. The actuary (.Mr W. Franklauil) arrives as; the following conclusions —(1) The rates of sichness and mortality oro lower than in Engknd, but (2) it ;s unsafe to infer from this that the actual vitality is bighsr, and (3) lower rates cf contributions or leas rigorous standards of valuation cannot safely bi recommended.