THE FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 364, 12 September 1874, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.

(Birmingham Duly Gazette.) The Friendly Societies Bill introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night, seems, as far as can be judged from Sir Stafford Northcote's statement of it, to be based upon sound principles. The conditions of the problem to be solved — which is that of subjecting these bodies to just so much legislative control as will correct their abuses withoiit impairing their independence and withdrawing the inducements to careful and prudent self-manage-men t — appear to have been kept well in view. The main principles of the Bill, as described by Sir Stafford Northcote, are to strengthen and improve the central machinery of registration, to publish correct actuarial tables for the use of these societies, and to encourage, and, as far as possible, to enforce a system of periodical valuation. The first of these provisions finds its obvious justification in the fact that the existing system of Government registration operates in many cases as a snare to the unwary than as a protection. The Government Registrar has at present no power to satisfy himself that societies submitted to him for registration are established on a sound financial basis and yet Government registration has come now to be looked upon rather erroneously as a certain guarantee of this financial soundness, which has, in fact, never been inquired into. Great disappointment has naturally arisen fiom the subsequent failure of societies thus supposed to be guaranteed ; and it seems to follow, therefore, that either Government registration should be abolished altogether, as indeed Mr Lowe has proposed, or else that it should be made of more value as a test of the financial soundness of the societies registered. This will be effected "by ihe provisions of the Bill that societies should in registering themselves register also certain particulars as to their numbers, funds, payments, and the value of their assets and liabilities. This will settle the question of their initial solvency for all persons who wish to inquire into the matter before joining them, while the no less important question of their continuing solvency would be settled by the publication of periodical accounts to be filled up by their officers according to certain forms prescribed by Government. A third and equally valuable form of assistance is given by the provision that Government shall prepare acturial tables settled by competent authorities, for the adoption, though not for the compulsory adoption, of such societies.

(CrIOBE ) With terrible signiticsmce the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night stated that " the insurance of infanta was believed to lead to great carelessness, to say the least of it, and it was shown that, where the burial societies existed, the mortality of infant life was lamentably in excess of what it was elsewhere." In this allegation he was corroborated by Mr Mncdonald who, perhaps, knows more regarding the social and economical condition of the working classes than any member in the House. The member for Stafford frankly expressed his gladness that the Government proposed dealing with burial societies, "which had hithei'to done so much mischief and so much wrong throughout the country." Tho Bill will forbid the insurance of infant lives under three years of age, and will impose severe restriction even above that age. Probably it would be safer to prohibit the insurance of infants altogether, or, at all events, until they had reached an age when they were capable of taking care of themselves. It is simply horrible to hear suggestions that English burial societies practically promote a state of things which vvas only believed to exist in the East.

Next to the " Psalm of Life" perhaps the best known of Longfellow's poems is "Excelsior." The word happened to catch his eye late one autunm evening in 1841. He 9aw it on a torn jve^e of new spstper, and it at once kindled his imagination so thaf he took the first piece of paper at hand and covered it with the vrrses which one h«ia so often heard sun* in excruciating fashion. That piece of paper has an additional value since it was the back of a letter from Charles Su mner