LEGISLATION FOR ODUSTRIAL CLASSES. 545 



(7.) Friendly Societies Amending Act, 1903. 

 Separate and distinct accounts to be kept of contributions to and 

 payments from the funds in I'espect of members who joined before and 

 after the 1st January, 1903. 



(8.) Friendly Societies Amendment Act, 1906. 

 Registration compulsoiy on all friendly societies. Rules inopera- 

 tive if unregistered. Moneys for different funds to be kept separate. 

 After valuation, Registrar may make recommendations and require 

 societies to submit proposals for improving financial position. Dis- 

 putes may be heard by Registrn.r. 



(9.) Invalidity and. Accident Pensions Act, 1907. 

 Persons over sixteen years of age, permanently incapacitated for 

 any v/ork, and not receiving old-age pension, entitled to pension not 

 exceeding twenty-six pounds a year. 



(10.) Suhventions to Friendly Societies Act, 1908. 

 On application by registered societies subventions will be paid 

 towards the cost of sick-pay, medical attendance, and funeral benefits 

 as follows : — Sick-pay subvention equal to half the cost of sick-pay on 

 account of extended sickness of male members under sixty-five and 

 females under sixty, and the Avliole cost in connection with sick-pay of 

 older members. Limited to five shillings per week for any individual 

 claim. Subvention equal to total contributions chargeable for medical 

 attendance and medicines in respect of male members aged sixty-five 

 and over, and of females aged sixty years and over. Subvention equal 

 to total contributions chargeable to assure payment of funeral 

 donations in respect of members over stated ages. 



Relevaxcy of tpie Epitomised Acts. 



It is interesting to compare the conditions existent in England 

 at the beginning of the nineteenth centuiy with those in New South 

 Wales at the present time. During the earlier period a number of 

 enactments were in force known as " Combination Laws," which were 

 mainly devised to prevent the industrial classes from combining to 

 secure amelioration of the conditions affecting their trade interests. 



In the year 1824 an Act was passed entitled '" Combination of 

 Workmen," the schedule to which, affords a vivid insight into the 

 severity of the laws which affected the working men prior to that 

 period. In that schedule appear the 'titles of thirty-four Acts which 

 were to be repealed, the first of them having been passed 500 years 

 previously, in the reign of Edward I. These repealed Acts had author- 

 ised penalties of the utmost severity for offences in the way of com- 

 Ijinations of workmen, which now are not only permissible, but are 

 even encouraged bj^ Statute. 



It is beside the pm-pose of this review to recapitulate the dark 

 history of the prolonged struggle of working men to secure the right 

 of uniting for their common welfare, and to render their conditions 

 of existence happier and more wholesome, but the above brief reference 

 serves to show by way of contrast the vast advance made during the 

 nineteenth century in the humane direction of emancipation from a 

 condition of practical serfdom. When we study the detailed provisioTis 



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