FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 212, 22 February 1872, Page 7

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

Strange revelations b^ave been tfl&d'e before the Friendly So/sisSies Commission, now sitting at Manchester, but it must be admitted that the witnesses give their evidence with a readiness which implies a firm belief in the integrity of the course they have been pursuing. Thus Mr. John Noden, secretary of the Salford Funeral Friendly Society, frankly confesses that the treasurer is a publican, that he received in one year nearly £100 out of the funds of the society for drink supplied by him, and that in point of fact more than 25 per cent of the total receipts were expended in liquor. An attempt was once made to remove the society from a public , house,, but, says Mr. Noden, " The treasurer gave a barrel of ale to the members, and when We came to decide the point we had no more power than a child." The Humane

Society of Ashton-under-Lyrie expends £114 a year on drink, and generally from 20 to 30 per celled of the cost of "the management is^for liquor. It is not so entered in. the accounts, but figures there as for accommodation," "yearly rent," or some such term. More than one witness confessed that the majority of existing societies " are hot, commercially speaking, solvent." They hold on through the forfeiture of funds made by the unpunctual members, and the admission of new and younger lives. The members never complain of the amount spent in liquor, and neither they nor the elected officers can be expected to possess an actuary's knowledge. Dr John Watts, a witness experienced in the working of friendly societies, expressed his desire to see the registrar invested with the power of revising rnles and refusing certificates when the rates of insurance were too low. He thought, also, that the Government might, by employing competent persons as postmasters and granting them a commission on the work done by them, get a great deal of the business into their Jiands. Dr Watt believed that the objection to Government interference would disappear so soon as the advantages of Government security were better known and some acquaintance with the statistics of sickness became general.