Friendly Societies, State Action, and the Poor-law. 
157 
attention to the subject, it might have passed without notice. 
One hoped rather than expected that the outcome of the Com- 
mission would be the substantial improvement of the insurances 
of the labouring poor, but no one now seriously maintains that 
their recommendations have either attained, or are likely to 
attain, the result which all could wish to see. There is a con- 
currence of opinion, that further delay means continued mischief 
to the poor, and 1 am advised again to call public attention to 
my Method. 
Meanwhile, as if to show how little good was expected from 
recent legislation, and how urgent the need of further effort to 
raise the poor out of their pitfalls, commonly called Benefit 
Clubs, and to place them on the terra firma of independence, 
an enterprise in every way remarkable, has for several years 
attracted a very considerable amount of sympathy and support. 
The proposal of the Rev. William Levvery Blackley for national 
compulsory insurance against destitution in sickness, infirmity 
and old age, and for the promotion of which the National 
Providence League has been formed,* has not yet, I believe, 
been published in detail. To discuss its merits would be 
foreign to the subject of this article, which is in favour of a 
voluntary system of insurance. Neither need I enter upon the 
inquiry on the probabilities that Mr. Blackley 's plan would, if 
adopted, interfere prejudicially with mine, or with any sound 
Friendly Society, or system of societies already in existence. 
The opposition which his proposal has already met with in 
some quarters, from apprehension of injury, appears to have 
been founded in error. Let me pay a tribute to the admirable 
spirit and energy and great ability which Mr. Blackley has 
devoted to his arduous task, and pass on to efforts made by 
others to bring about a better state of things. 
The attempts which have been made in Parliament to obtain 
further amendments of the law relating to Friendly Societies, 
furnish additional evidence of the opinion that steps must be 
taken to secure labourers against the risks they run, and the 
disasters which sooner or later befall them in their insurances. 
Mr. Harcourt,t M.P. for Oxfordshire, has given notice of his 
intention to bring in a Bill, the object of which is to make 
it penal for any person to establish or manage a society, the 
rules of which are not certified to be in conformity with the 
* See Appendix. 
t Lord Lymington, M.P., is also devoting attention to the question, and has 
obtained an interesting return relating to the pauper inmates of unions who were 
fi irmerly in benefit cluba. The return may be compared with that obtained by 
the Earl of Lichfield in 18G8. 
