SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE ON FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2954, 3 August 1878, Page 4

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE ON FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

In connection with items of local inici'cHb regarding Friendly Societies, we purpose publishing from time to time the opinions of .eminent men upon the subject, as showing the amount of interest taken ia these matters both in the Mother Country and abroad. On this occasion we take that of one of England's greatest statesmen of the present day, Sir Stafford I:T( itkcote in reply to an address presented to 'ini by the Edinburgh Working Men's Association. In the course of his speech lie made the following observations :—" I observe that amongst measures with ■whu-h you have been good enough to as-

sncu'.io my name is a measure I undoubtedly Lad a great share in promotkv^—l mean the measure for the reform of the laws relating to friendly societies. Upon the last, or almost the las!;, occasion on which. I was in Edinburgh, I was there with my friend and present colleague, Sir Michael Hicks Eeach, for the purpose of examining those who were connected with friendly societies in this town in order that we might frame a report which we were engaged in preparing, and which was the foundation of the measure which was passed two years ago. (He referred to the Poor Law Amendment Act and its relation to friendly societies.) Nothing struck me move in that visit, which I made here and to Glasgow and" other places, both in England and Ireland, than the way in which those who were . connected ■with societies of this kind—the men of the working classes—- were themselves fitting an example of what could- be done. Nothing struck me more than the fact that those men, humbled in their position, straitened in their means, working under great difficulties, and often deprived of the advantages which I hope will now be more freely given them of obtaining correct information, yet with great self-sacrifice, with great courage, and great intelligence—were working out for themselves a problem, which in a great many countries it has taken the whple ■wisdon and energies of the State to grapple with. Nothing struck me more than-this; for it impressed upon me the conviction that if England is to be the country which she is formed to be, it must be by the zealous co-operation of all dosses of her citizens, it must be by the readiness of the-humbler, the most indigent, if I may so describe them, to work out their own salvation as far as possible, by their own exertions, without to a great extent trusting to Parliament or the Government. Now there is a very great distinction between the character of the British people and the character of many foreign nations. We are not in the habit—our people are not in the habit of throwing themselves upon the Government and the Legislature to do that which they can do themselves ; and heaven forbid we should by any misjudged acts of kindness, however well intended, however oarefully devised, in any way desire to curtail that spirit of independence, and that spirit of self development, in which w. think there is so great a salvation to the people of this country."