690 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



able, and certainly unexpected. In the case of men who 

 have joined friendly societies, or take out a policy of as- 

 surance, lapses may perhaps temporarily benefit to some 

 extent the societies or associations to which they belonged, 

 but it is at the subsequent expense of the public. In all 

 matters relating to individuals there is a kind of compensating 

 influence at work. You may take advantage of a man 

 according to the circumstance under which he is placed in 

 relation to yourself. Thus an advantage may be taken of a 

 poor man by reason of the fact that he is poor. He must 

 live, and his condition may be such that he must work for the 

 barest pittance, just as certain Easterns do who are slaves 

 of their masters. Modern society, mechanical and artificial 

 as it has become, is in reality based upon scientific lines. 

 Government as we know it to be to-day is the outcome of the 

 sufferings and sacrifices made by individuals and societies and 

 associations in the cause of freedom and enlightenment. It 

 is organization and collectivism that have saved the indivi- 

 dual as against oppression and poverty, and great importance 

 should be attached to the inquiry how far organization has 

 tended to improve the conditions of the workers. 



In all the papers I have perused on thrift and pensions 

 nothing has been said as to the effect of trade organizations 

 in conjunction with the specialisation of labour upon indi- 

 viduals and wages. For example, let us take the case of 

 a hundred workmen engaged, say, at a sawmill in this 

 town, and a hundred workmen engaged as labourers or occa- 

 sional station - hands. The former have regular work, and 

 they become subject to regulations which require them to 

 anticipate the morrow. Their habits are moulded to the 

 conditions under which they work. As associates, the men 

 are able to discuss subjects that affect their interests, and it 

 will be found that the large majority enter one or other of 

 the friendly societies in the town. But what of the hundred 

 labourers and occasional station-hands, whose home life is 

 entirely absent? How are they circumstanced, and how 

 many of them are there who join an association for mutual 

 intercourse and benefit ? The question is one that bears 

 directly upon the inquiry as to whether anything should be 

 done for men in the aggregate. There are usually in the Old 

 Men's Home in this town forty-five men, their ages varying 

 from fifty-five to seventy-five years. Of those now in occupa- 

 tion, thirty-eight are over sixty years of age and seven below 

 sixty. All of them have been accustomed to irregular em- 

 ployment, and the large majority are the product of the 

 sheep-stations. These are facts which can be easily verified 

 at the present time, and they go to show the importance of 

 organization in trades and professions. How many, for 



