Friendly Societies, State Action, and the Poor-law. 
155 
depreciate the excellence of many of the recommendations of the 
Royal Commissioners. They accumulated an immense baggage 
of evidence, sufficient to furnish authors for all time to come 
with information of societies, sound or unsound, old and young, 
honest and otherwise. They related the career of societies of irre- 
proachable character ; they devoted attention to those which, like 
Thais of old, live by their lapses. It is impossible to question 
their diligence, or to raise any question on the valuable in- 
formation embodied in their final Report, and especially, as 
it seems to me, of that portion which deals with the Poor-law 
in relation to Friendly Societies. The decision, however, of the 
Commissioners in deferring to a more convenient season the 
question of " State action " in, not the cost, but the management 
of insurances suited to labourers, is not only open to challenge, 
but, in consequence of the impotence of their recommendations 
in improving the condition of the rural poor by thrift, evidence 
is rapidly accumulating proof that further measures are required. 
By the kindness and liberality of the Council of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, the writer of this article was enabled to 
fulfil a promise which he made to the Commission on the con- 
clusion of his oral evidence, that he would submit for investiga- 
tion and report his plan in some detail, relating to a system of 
sickness-pay and burial-money insurance, and other insurances, 
suited to the labouring classes, through the Post-Office. The 
proposal had already been much discussed, having been pre- 
viously published in this * and other Journals, and brought 
specially to the attention of the Commissioners in a pamphlet,! 
the main object of which was to obtain inquiry into the 
legislation relating to Friendly Societies. Attention had also 
been given to it by the Commission for the Employment 
of Children in Agriculture. Its importance was recognised 
at Poor-law Conferences held in different parts of the country. 
A Memorial in behalf of the method was further drawn up 
by myself, and by the well-known authorities on Benefit and 
Friendly Societies, Mr. Wyndham S. Portal, the Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Hampshire Friendly Society, and the Hon. Edward 
Stanhope, M.P., formerly an Assistant Commissioner on Em- 
ployment of Children, &c., in Agriculture. This document 
(of which a copy will be found at the end of this article) sets 
forth the importance of a self-supporting system of insurance, 
mainly for sickness-pay and burial-money, and urged that the 
* See 'Journal,' vol. viii. part 1, 1872, "Method of improving the Labouring 
Classes;" also ihid., \\. parti, "Farm Labourers, their Friendly Societies 
and the Poor-law." 
t ' Suggestions for Legislation relating to Friendly Societies.' Published by 
Eidgway, aud reprinted in the evidence of the Commission for Children, &c., ia 
Agriculture. 
