78 
Post- Office Insurance for Labourers. 
now wasted by them in various ways, among which are, first and 
foremost, their so-called Benefit Societies. 
The fact that their contributions to such societies are of suffi- 
cient amount to secure to them support in sickness and old age, 
and a sum payable at death, including all fair and reasonable 
charges of management, is one which must not be lost sig^ht of. 
It disposes of the presumed necessity of raising the wages of 
labourers, especially of the agricultural class, in order to enable 
them to save. They have the money, but no safe means of 
insurance in which to invest it. It is true that there are excep- 
tional districts in England in which wages are too low to permit 
persons to save any part of their earnings, and the grievance 
is one which calls for a remedy at the hands of those who 
cause it. But we have to deal, not with the exceptional case of 
underpaid labour, but with the generality who are earning good 
wages. And if it is true that labourers who look on the poor- 
rate as a reason why thev need not and ought not to save, " unless 
they would forfeit their rights," are spending on such unsafe 
refuges for poor men in distress as their benefit societies are, sums 
suflBcient to raise them above the position of paupers, provided 
onlv that they had the means of safe investment and the will to 
use them, have we no claim on that assistance which might 
provide a security for their investments ? no right to demand 
that all fair influences shall be used to cause them to employ 
their advantages for their own good ? The influences can only 
be gained by a different administration of the Poor Law than has 
hitherto been common, and certain alterations in the Poor Law 
itself. Some strictness is required in dealing with labourers, in 
order to discourage and deter them from their practice of resort 
to the rate. 
" Xor was ever cure 
But with some pain effected." 
I will recapitulate, and as briefly as possible discuss, the altera- 
tion desired in the Poor Law and its administration, and then 
offer certain suggestions relating to the powers of the Registrar of 
Friendly Societies, after which the proposal to establish a svstem 
of Insurance through the Post-Office, will be described, and regu- 
lations required for its safe and proper management given. 
The points relating to the Poor Law and the administration of 
relief are : — 
I. Strict treatment of able-bodied male paupers of bad or 
indifferent character, thus making a difference between them and 
able-bodied paupers whose want has resulted from misfortune or 
the visitation of God. 
II, Able-bodied paupers of the latter class, and aged and 
