Post- Office Insurance fur Labourers. 
101 
greatly restricted ; the sums are limited to amounts not ex- 
ceeding 100/., and not less than 20/. ; and, with regard to the 
Annuities, the public require time before they will understand 
their right use. Much improvement is also required in the 
manner in which these insurances are brought before the labour- 
ing classes. At present the people are mostly puzzled and dis- 
couraged bv the lengthv papers and the process of securing 
insurances ; and as the officials are not paid sufficiently to make 
it worth their while to attend to the work, little or nothing is 
done. All this might, and we trust will, be set right, and we 
may then reasonably anticipate that a fair share of business, even 
in the annuities, will be obtained. 
I have now noticed the principal objections started against 
the Post-Office plan, both bv persons who are desirous to keep 
the Government out of the field of insurance, and by those who 
are giving thoughtful attention to the proposal, with the desire 
to see some means devised and employed bv which the helpless 
condition of the wage-paid labourers of the lower class in respect 
«'l insurance mav be improved, and who desire to have such 
iiljjections discussed with a view to test the importance to be 
attached to them. I trust that it has been shown that the 
importance of such objections has been over-estimated, and that 
there is no sound and insurmountable difficulty in the way of 
this part of the method of improving the condition of labourers. 
In a paper * advocating " Sickness-pav through the Post- 
Office," by the Hon. Edward Stanhope, formerly Assistant- 
Commissioner on the employment of children, voung persons, 
and women in agriculture, the advantages of the plan are thus 
summarised : — 
(IV The security of the insurance will be indisputable, and 
will not be affected bv anything: short of a g:reat national 
convulsion. 
(2) . It will give to all insurers the advantage of transferring 
their place of abode without interfering with their insurance. 
(3) . It will give facilities for greater economy of adminis- 
tration, and 
(4) . Afford a standard of economy and good management to 
other Friendly Societies. 
Something has been said of the desirability of the Annual 
Festival. Against this institution I have nothing to object, so 
long as it is managed with order and decorum bv the members 
themselves. A district of the Post-Office Friendly Society 
might have its annual festival, either separately or in conjunction 
• Read at the Conference of the Friendly Societies Association in London in 
1870. 
