October i, 1903J 



NATURE 



537 



Friendly Societies Act, are also regulated by a separate Act, 

 and it is convenient therefore to consider them apart. They 

 insure burial money only. They are only 46 in number, 

 having increased from 43 in 189 1. They have as many as 

 b, 678, 005 members, an increase from 5,922,615 in 1899 and 

 3,875,215 in 1891 ; but among these each individual above 

 the age of one year in every family is counted separately, 

 and the majority, therefore, are young children. Their 

 funds are 5,973,104/., or 17s. iid. per member, having in- 

 creased from 5,207,680/., or 17s. 7^. per member, since 

 1899, and from 2,713,214/., or 14s. per member, since 1891. 

 These societies therefore show progress like the others. 



The collecting societies do a similar business to that of 

 the Industrial Assurance Companies, of which the Prudential 

 is the type. Their ostensible reason for existence is to 

 answer that instinct of human nature which makes even the 

 poorest desire that the burial of the dead should be attended 

 with some degree of ceremony ; but strong as that instinct 

 may be, it does not prompt the poor to seek out the office 

 of the society and pay their premiums there. They have 

 to be solicited by canvassers and waited upon by an army 

 of collectors at their own homes ; and the maintenance of 

 this army and the general cost of management absorb nearly 

 half the contributions, so that the poor insurer pays double 

 the net price for his insurance. There is reason to believe, 

 moreover, that these societies are largely used for specu- 

 lative insurances by persons who have no real insurable 

 interest in the lives insured. So long ago as 1774 an Act 

 was passed for the purpose of checking this sort of gambling 

 in human life ; but as it only makes the policy void, the 

 insurer takes the risk of the society repudiating the con- 

 tract, knowing that its doing so would discredit it and spoil 

 its business. 



A number of other classes of societies are capable of being 

 registered under the Friendly Societies Act, such as cattle 

 insurance societies, benevolent societies, working men's 

 clubs, and societies for any purpose the registry of which 

 the Treasury may specially authorise. The formation of 

 cattle insurance societies on a large scale was contemplated 

 by an Act of 1866, when the cattle plague was at its height ; 

 but in practice only small pig clubs and similar societies 

 in Lincolnshire and the neighbouring counties have been 

 registered under this head. Benevolent societies are defined 

 as societies for any benevolent or charitable purpose, and 

 might therefore comprise all the charitable institutions of 

 the United Kingdom, but in fact the registered benevolent 

 societies are few. Working men's clubs — frequently called 

 working men's clubs and institutes — were first brought 

 under the operation of the Friendly Societies Act of that 

 day by Sir George Grey as Secretary of State in 1864, and 

 were then societies for purposes of social intercourse, mutual 

 helpfulness, mental and moral improvement, and rational 

 recreation. They are still so defined by law ; what they are 

 in fact has been revealed by the provisions of the Licensing 

 Act, 1902, as to the registration of clubs. Rules have been 

 submitted to the Registry Office, and we have been advised 

 that we have no discretion to refuse to register them as 

 rules for carrying out the excellent purposes just defined, 

 providing for the supply of intoxicating liquors to members 

 and their friends at hours when the ordinary licensed houses 

 are compulsorily closed, for keeping the club open every 

 night until midnight, and on nights when there are balls 

 until six o'clock in the morning, and for other incitements 

 to intemperance. I hope that it will not be long before 

 an enactment is passed that the registry of a club under the 

 Licensing Act shall vacate its registry under the Friendly 

 Societies Act. Such clubs have nothing to do with thrift 

 or with insurance ; they are rather instruments of extrava- 

 gance, improvidence, and dissipation. 



Some of the specially authorised purposes are also wide 

 of the mark, which upon the ejusdem generis rule should, 

 I think, be pointed with strictness in the direction of pro- 

 vident insurance ; but there has always been a desire 

 liberally to extend the benefits of the Friendly Societies Act 

 with a view to the encouragement of societies having praise- 

 worthy objects which for want of means or some other 

 ! reason are not registered as companies. The large majority 

 of specially authorised societies are Loan Societies, and 

 though these may in some cases be fairly good investments 

 for those who lend, they are of doubtful benefit to those 

 who borrow. An exception must be made to this state- 

 ment with respect to the Agricultural Credit Societies, 



NO. 1770, VOL. 68] 



many of which have been established in Ireland by the 

 exertions of Sir Horace Plunkett, and have been pecuniarily 

 assisted by the Congested Districts Board. It is a feature 

 of these societies that they not only lend money to the 

 small farmer, but see that he spends it on improvements 

 to his farm ; and also that there is no division of profit 

 among the members. 



The returns from all societies under the F"riendly Societies 

 Act other than Friendly Societies proper increased from 557 

 in 1891 to 1308 in 1899, and 1449 in 1901 ; the number of 

 members from 241,44b in 1891 to 610,254 '" '899, and 

 649.:»qi in 1901 ; and the amount of funds from 594,808/. 

 in 1891 to 1,528,064/. in 1899, and 1,686,656/. in 1901. 

 Here, again, great allowance has to be made for the want 

 of completeness in the returns of the earliest date. 



Allied to Friendly Societies, but having special regula- 

 tions under other Acts, are shop clubs and workmen's com- 

 pensation schemes. In a vast number of large industrial 

 establishments the men have their own sick club, some- 

 times assisted by the employer ; and in a few the employer 

 makes it a condition of employment that every workman 

 shall join the club. Where this is done it is now enacted, 

 not only that the club shall comply with the requirements 

 of the Friendly Societies Act as to registry, but also with 

 other conditions of more stringency. As yet only a few 

 clubs have been able to satisfy all the requirements of the 

 Shop Clubs Act, 1902. The workmen's compensation 

 schemes provide an alternative to the genferal scheme of 

 compensation to injured workmen contained in the Act of 

 1897, and have enabled the employers and workmen in 

 several large industries to enter into mutual arrangements 

 by which the workman gains an equivalent to the com- 

 pensation which the Act would give him, and enters into 

 partnership with the employer for obtaining other benefits. 

 According to the returns, these schemes have hitherto re- 

 sulted very favourably to the workmen, and it seems a pity 

 there are not more of them. 



The sentiment of which I have spoken, that it is desirable 

 to extend the benefits of the Friendly Societies Acts to 

 societies for good objects, even though those objects may 

 not be purposes of provident insurance, is expressed in the 

 statute of 1834, which allowed of " any purpose which is 

 not illegal," and in that of 1846, in which the definition of 

 a F"riendly Society was made to include the frugal invest- 

 ment of the savings of the members for better enabling 

 them to purchase food, firing, clothes, or other necessaries, 

 or the tools, implentents, or materials of their trade or 

 calling, or to provide for the education of thejr children or 

 kindred. Under these Acts the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers 

 and a number of other Co-operative Societies were 

 registered, and in 1852 an Act was passed specially dealing 

 with these bodies under the name of Industrial and Provi- 

 dent Societies. They were made corporate bodies by an Act 

 of 1862, and are now regulated by the Industrial and Provi- 

 dent Societies Act, 1893. The societies that may be regis- 

 tered under that Act are societies for carrying on any 

 industries, businesses, or trades specified in or authorised 

 by their rules, whether wholesale or retail, and including 

 dealings of any description with land. 



This definition indicates pretty clearly the manner in 

 which Co-operative Societies have worked out their own 

 evolution. The expression " Industries " denotes the pro- 

 ductive form of sofiety, a form which has always embodied 

 the ideal of co-operation when the combined labour of the 

 members should be engaged in the production of commodi- 

 ties. The expression " Businesses " indicates the recogni- 

 tion of the Legislature that Co-operative Societies ought 

 to cover a wider range than was allowed by the words 

 " labour, trade, or handicraft " in the Act of 1876, and 

 includes banking, assurance, and the like. The expression 

 " Trades " denotes the distributive form of society, a form 

 in which co-operation has gained its greatest successes. 

 The permission to carry on these functions " wholesale " 

 as well as retail points to the system of super-association, 

 or co-operation between societies, which has attained 

 phenomenal proportions in the co-operative wholesale 

 societies of Manchester and of Glasgow^ and exists in a 

 smaller degree of development in other societies. The 

 authorising of " dealings of any description with land " 

 relates not merely to a considerable number of land societies, 

 but is also an indication of the great extent to which 

 societies for other purposes have applie(^ their profits and 



