and the Poor Law. 
117 
sucli advantages, with the best results on their own present and 
future condition, even if the obstacles of the Poor Law remained 
untouched, and that their example and influence would not be 
lost on others. 
The proposition which has found favour with most advocates 
of the reform of friendly societies, " to dissociate them from the 
public-houses," is impracticable. It has been " recommended 
unanimously " by a committee of Convocation, and gains such 
general assent that the expression of the opinion that the attempt 
ought not to be made to interfere with them by legislation is 
given with unwillingness. Much anxious consideration of the 
question fails, however, to show how such interference can be 
reconciled with the liberty of the citizen.* It would be the 
better course (granting that it could be made illegal for societies 
to meet at public-houses) that the managers and members 
should themselves reform and improve their societies, under 
influences brought to bear upon them, rather than that a crusade 
against public-house benefit clubs should be persisted in. The 
practical way to advance this reform is to establish in convenient 
local centres, such as the money order offices and the larger 
country post offices, a system of sickness-pay and burial-money 
insurances which will provide all healthy young men who are 
fairly remunerated for their labour with the means of raising 
themselves above the abject condition of paupers. And, jhjvi 
passu with such provision, to make the labouring classes of this 
country fully understand that, with good wages, they will not be 
permitted such free access to the rate as they now possess, and 
that far from being a matter of indifference to them whether the 
rate is large or small, it will be to their advantage in every way 
to reduce the burden of the same. The application of the 
principles advocated in these pages should be confided to 
the exj)erience and discretion of the guardians, in so far as they 
relate to the laws of relief. The two systems, of the Poor Law 
and of the friendly society, would have their respective spheres 
in Avhich, without coming into collision, they might act for the 
good of all. If there were no higher ground for urging the work 
of reform than a saving in the cost of the rate,| in agricultural 
districts overburdened with rates, it has yet a strong claim on 
* "The liberty of the subject " appears to have been strangely overlooked in dis- 
cussing the question of beer-house and other benefit societies since Mr. Gladstone's 
speech iu Parliament on Post Office insurance in 1864, when stress was laid 
upon it. 
t It is estimated that 2,000,00CL a year are saved to the poor-rate by friendly- 
societies. If such is the saving by means of societies commonly insolvent, it is 
only reasonable to anticipate that a nmch larger sum would be raised for the 
support of the labouring classes by their own means, thus securing a further 
reduction iu the rate, if only their insurunces were of a trustworthy character. 
