68 POLITICAL ECONOMY 



are allowed to exist need not be very widely departed from 

 in the case of unions. The Government ought no more to 

 interfere as to the sufficiency of the payments by members to 

 meet the benefits promised, than they ought to declare publicly 

 whether a given joint-stock company is sound or unsound ; but 

 they may properly insist that the liability of the members of 

 the association shall be unlimited, so that no member subscrib- 

 ing on the faith of mutual assurance need be without a legal 

 remedy against the body and the individuals for any sums 

 which may become due to him. The names of all members 

 should be made public, and every change of membership, by 

 death, expulsion, or withdrawal should also be published, with 

 the cause of the change, and a legal appeal against expulsion 

 should be established. The rules of the union should be the 

 articles of association, providing for their own modification, and 

 for the passing of bye-laws within certain limits. The duty of 

 the registrar should be confined to certifying whether the 

 articles of the association contained any illegal provisions, and 

 no society should be permitted to exist except in the form now 

 sketched. We would leave the widest possible scope to legal 

 societies, and would forbid secret societies under heavy penalties. 

 Of course the accounts of these societies should be audited, but 

 we attribute little virtue to the system of audits. We do not 

 see how an auditor, even if he examine a voucher for every 

 payment, is to discover whether or no the voucher be forged ; 

 if a dozen men, when a branch wishes to misapply funds, sign 

 receipts, say for payments during sickness, and the secretary 

 duly enters these payments in his book, how can any auditor, 

 however appointed, discover that these men were not sick, but 

 that the funds have been misapplied ? In cases of crime paid 

 for out of union funds, a bungle in the accounts might assist 

 detection, but simple misappropriation of funds will not be 

 detected by auditing. Again, suppose it to have been detected, 

 the auditor refuses to pass the accounts. If the union approve 

 the misappropriation they have only to subscribe the amount, 

 recoup the peccant branch, and the accounts must pass. This 

 is no punishment for misappropriation. If Wl. are misapplied 

 without detection the union will possess a balance of say 90/. 

 If detected they will have to subscribe 101. , but they do not 





