732 REPORT— 190n. 



the statute boo]c, and the experience of the last twenty-eight years has shown how 

 Tahmble it is and how much it is to be regretted that the Act of 184B was not 

 allowed to remain in force. Again, the Act of I80O provided for the discrimina- 

 tion of societies into two classes: those which were simply registered and those 

 which were certified. These latter were to obtain the certificate of a qualified 

 actuary that their tables of contribution were sufficient for the benefits they pro- 

 posed to insure. Very few certified societies were established, and that Act was 

 repealed in 1855. The experience of the Legislature has not been favourable 

 therefore to endeavours to impose upon Friendlj^ Societies by Act of Parliament 

 conditions of actuarial soundness. 



If, however, the voluntary principle is abandoned, and all societies are to be 

 compelled to register, it is obvious that there must be a recurrence to the policy 

 of imposing such conditions. At pi'esent a registered society may be as unsound 

 as it pleases, and so may an unregistered society. Unless registry is to imply 

 something more than that, there can be no reason for any compulsion to register. 

 For what does compulsion mean ? It means prosecuting, fining, and sending to 

 prison all persons who associate themselves together for the lawful and innocent 

 purpose of mutual support in sickness and adversity without registration ; and 

 that, obviously, cannot reasonably be done unless abstinence from registration is 

 shown to be a moral ofti^nce ; that is to say, unless the conditions of registration 

 are such that a registered society shall be necessarily a good one, and an unregis- 

 tered society necessarily a bad one. We must begin, at any rate, by devising 

 model tables and insisting that every society shall adopt them. Ai-e they not 

 ready to hand ? Did not my lamented colleague, Mr. Sutton, prepare a Blue Book 

 of 1,350 pages full of them? That is true ; but it is also true that in the brief 

 introductory remarks which he addressed to me at the beginning of that report 

 he observed, M'ith great force, that the adoption of sufficient rates of contribution is 

 not enough to secure the soundness of a society. Those rates are derived from the 

 average experience of all classes of societies — some exercising careful supervision 

 over claims for sick pay, others lax in their management — and it is upon care in 

 the management, rather than upon sufficiency of rates, that the success of a 

 Friendly Society mainly depends. If the members administer the aflairs of their 

 society with the same rigorous parsimony and watch over the claims for sick-pay 

 with the same vigilance Avhich a poor and prudent man is compelled to exercise in 

 the administration of his own household affairs, the society will be more than 

 solvent, even though they do not pay as high a contribution as the model tables 

 exact. If they neglect these precnutious, there is no model table which will rescue 

 them from ultimate insolvency. In Mr. Sutton's liappy phrase, it is the personal 

 equation of the members and of their medical adviser that tells the most on the 

 prosperity or the failure of a society. Your compulsory registration will impose 

 unfair conditions ou the well-managed societies, and will do nothing to prevent 

 the inevitable collapse of those which are badly managed. Registration tells for a 

 great deal while it is voluntary and free ; but if you make it compulsory, and add 

 to it conditions that you suppose will tend to soundness, you will inevitably do 

 more harm than good. It is, of course, of vital importance that adequate rates of 

 contribution should be charged for the benefits proposed to be insured ; but if 

 these are imposed by authority, the management of the societies must also be 

 undertaken by the same authority. It is a curious observation, which has been 

 borne out by experience, that in poor societies the claims for sickness are relatively 

 less than in rich ones. M. Bertillon.the eminent French statistician, has shrewdly 

 remarked : ' The truth is, that friendly societies, when they grant sick-pay, attacli 

 less weight to the text of their rules than to the state of their funds. If the 

 society is rich, it grants relief more freely than if it is poor. Thence, and thence 

 only, it comes that the great English societies, which are often very old and 

 generally rich, give more days' pay than the French societies, for example, which 

 are bound to a rigorous economy.' Without necessarily assenting to all that 

 M. Bertillon says, it is easy to see that if the State were unwise enough to say 

 that such-and-such rates would be sufficient, it would encourage laxity of manage- 

 ment, and ^pcept a rpsppnsibility that does not jjelong to it. 



