Mr W. Fraser mt Benefit or Friendly ^Societies. 299 



peace and. war, from 1731 to 1822, and, by extracting from the tables collect- 

 ed and published by M. Caesar Moreau, the highest and lowest price of the 

 Three Per-cents each year, he found that the average annual price was 73.1 

 during 48 years of war, 80.14 during 44 years of peace, and 79.33 during 92 

 years of war and peace. According to these rates, he states the averages to 

 be 4. 1 per cent, during war, 3.48 per cent, during peace, and 3.78 per cent, 

 during war and peace ; or a little more than an average rate of 3| per cent, 

 during the whole period of 92 years *. But Mr Finlaison, actuary to the 

 National Debt Office, states, from the opportunities he has had, in his official 

 situation, of observing the prices at which the Commissioners have purchased 

 stock, that, upon a medium of the last forty years, the rate of interest realised 

 from the investment of money in the Three Per-cents, the highest of all funds, 

 has been precisely the same as if it had been invested at one uniform and 

 constant rate of 44 per centum ; and that this observation holds equally true 

 for the period of the last twenty years. Mr Finlaison therefore infers, that, 

 for a long time to come, the interest of money in this country may be calcu- 

 lated at 4 per cent f . 



From the^e circumstances, then, we would venture to conclude that Friend- 

 ly Societies in Scotland may safely calculate upon 4 per cent, interest ; for, 

 although some small sums must always be reserved to meet current demands, 

 and be consequently unproductive of interest ; yet, on the other hand, it is to 

 be remembered that they have no bad debts, that a very high rate of interest 

 in the shape of fines is charged for all sums in arrear, and that it is general- 

 ly practicable to make some better investments than even in the Three Per- 

 cents. 



Contributions and Benefits. 



At the commencement of every Friendly Society, there must be necessarily 

 fixed some standard rates of contributions and benefits, a minimum and maxi- 

 mum age at which entrants shall be admitted, and the periods when the be- 

 nefits shall commence, diminish, and cease. It does not follow, however, 

 that one uniform rate of payments and allowances must be adopted for all the 

 members by each society, as has hitherto been the almost universal practice ; 

 but only that some certain rate of contribution and allowance be properly 

 adapted to each other, so that other higher or lower rates may be therefrom 

 deduced. In every rightly conducted society, therefore, a member should be 

 allowed to take one or more of the benefits, and such allowance from each as 

 he may find suited to his own circumstances. 



The benefits of Friendly Societies, it was formerly mentioned, usually con- 

 sist of weekly allowances during sickness and infirmity, of sums payable at death, 

 and, in some cases, of annuities to widows. The amount of allowance in sick- 

 ness is generally regulated by its intensity or duration, — bedfast, walking and 

 permanent sickness forming one class of payments, while sickness of the first, 

 second, third, and fourth quarters, or periods of three months, and superannua- 

 tion (I. e. sickness or infirmity of unlimited continuance), form another,— the 



* A Comparative View of the various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives, by C. Babbage, 

 Esq. London, 1826. 



t Report of the Sdect Committee of the House of Commons respecting Friendly Societie* in 

 1825, p. 48. 



