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 \ 
 
 FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 BEERHOUSE CLUBS.
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR LEGISLATION 
 
 RELA.TINO TO 
 
 FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, 
 
 AND 
 
 FOR A SYSTEM OF INSURANCES 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 WAGE-PAID CLASSES 
 
 BY MEANS OF THE POST OFFICE. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. Y. STEATTON, 
 
 RECTOR OF DITTON, KENT, AND SECRETARY OF THE COUNTY OF KENT 
 FRIENDLY SOCIETY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WILLIAM KIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY. W. 
 
 1868. 
 
 Price One Shilling.
 
 FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, &c. 
 
 In view of legislation on behalf of Friendly 
 Societies, promised during the Session of Parlia- 
 ment, an inquiry into their present condition, the 
 resources of those who maintain them, and the 
 means which these institutions possess of bene- 
 fiting the industrial and labouring classes (pro- 
 vided that they are properly applied), will, it is 
 hoped, be of service. The question of the exten- 
 sion of a trustworthy system of these Societies 
 throughout the country will also claim attention, 
 and, in the course of our remarks, suggestions will 
 be offered which may in some degree help to clear 
 the way for sound and beneficial measures of 
 reform. 
 
 A few words will suffice to describe the common 
 construction of the Friendly Society. It is an 
 institution intended to provide support for its mem- 
 bers during sickness and old age, together with 
 a sum at death. These benefits, as they are called, 
 are secured by periodical contributions, which are 
 in some Societies uniform, in others are graduated 
 according to age. An entrance fee is not uncom- 
 monly charged, and the benefit of medical attend- 
 ance is frequently added to the foregoing, for 
 which an additional charge is made. It will thus 
 be seen that the Friendly Society is that kind of 
 
 A 2
 
 insurance best adapted to the requirements of the 
 1 wage-parld" classes. To them, provision during 
 
 sickness becomes of the first importance : next in 
 their estimation is the burial money. It is a com- 
 mon and excellent practice to secure the double 
 benefit of sickness and burial money by one insur- 
 ance. For instance, A, aged 20, insures for 12s a 
 week during sickness, together with£10at death, for 
 which he pays, sick or well, eighteen pence a month. 
 "Provision for old age, we will not say is as yet un- 
 known, but it is extremely rare among those who 
 live by manual labour. One reason among several 
 for their indifference to this benefit deserves notice. 
 Although many societies offer it, prudent men dis- 
 trust their ability to make the offer good. They 
 apprehend that, long before the time arrives when 
 their old age pay should begin, the society will be 
 broken up, and its funds dispersed. In the face 
 of the constant and prevalent mortality of these 
 societies, the apprehension is by no means 
 groundless. 
 
 Another class of insurance, offered by the 
 Friendly Society, which only requires to be better 
 known among artisans and mechanics, to become 
 as popular as it deserves to be, is that called ' En- 
 dowments,' by which the insurer may secure, either 
 for himself or for his nominee, a sum not exceed- 
 ing £200, which is payable at the end of a term 
 of years, as agreed, usually not less than seven, or 
 exceeding twenty.
 
 By means of this excellent and easily managed 
 class of insurance, the apprentice fee for the boy, 
 or the portion for the maiden when the time comes, 
 is obtainable, and that by a better investment than 
 the Savings' Bank affords. For in the latter case 
 the depositor can easily withdraw his savings, and 
 a slight pressure will often induce him to do so ; 
 but an L endowed member' of a Society cannot 
 thus readily dissipate his savings. He must prove 
 his inability to continue payments, or show cause 
 why the Society should return his deposits. We 
 may add that no persons appear to be better 
 pleased, when they come to receive their money at 
 the expiration of the term, than those who, but for 
 the wholesome stringency of the rules of the Society, 
 would have withdrawn their deposits from its 
 custody under some transient pressure. Further, 
 as endowments are calculated at 3 per cent, interest, 
 they have an advantage over the great majority ot 
 Savings' Banks, which seldom pay so much, and 
 over the Post Office Banks., which do not pay more 
 than 2 j per cent. 
 
 In a country blessed with peace and plenty, and 
 an abundant and thriving population, we have the 
 conditions required for the development of trust- 
 worthy Friendly Societies. If life becomes hazard- 
 ous, these institutions, the offspring of peace and 
 goodwill between man and man, are the first to 
 wither and die.* In Great Britain we ought to find, 
 
 * Anions the earliest announcements of the effects of the
 
 iianvwhere in the world, these institutions in their 
 healthiest forms and greatest vigour. 
 
 Again, next to the influences of religion, there 
 is probably no lever bv -which to raise the labour- 
 ing classes in the moral and social scale, so power- 
 ful as the independence to be acquired through the 
 medium of the Friendly Society. There is. however, 
 a lower, though still an important point of view. 
 It is estimated that an annual reduction of two 
 millions is effected in the poor-rate by Friendly 
 Societies as at present constituted and managed ; 
 and if it should appear, as is undoubtedly true, 
 that they are for the most part untrustworthy, being 
 in respect both of their funds and management in the 
 last degree insecure, the consideration arises whether 
 an improved system of Friendly Socie*: a - aid 
 not, in addition to other advantages, materially 
 leases the burden of the poor-rate. If it is true that 
 in spite of all their shortcomings and mismanage- 
 ment, which are not the exception but the rule, 
 they reduce the rate by od or 4-i in every shilling, 
 is it unreasonable to expect that with a trust- 
 worthy system of societies such a redu c t io n would 
 soon become much greater '.' On pecuniarv 
 grounds alone therefore, if no higher exisfe . this 
 question demands attention, and the treatment 
 which Friendly Societies commonly receive at the 
 
 late civ!", strife : .z America, ■ .- Hie collapse of its 
 
 Frk " '- _ now appear to be in a flourishing 
 
 condition.
 
 hands of the Poor Law, in return for such benefits, 
 may well give rise to unfavourable remark. 
 
 There are upwards of 23,000 certified Friendly 
 Societies in England and Wales, of which their 
 learned Registrar may well say that he cannot 
 satisfy himself of the solvency of 20. There can 
 be no doubt that the vast majority of these societies 
 (composed, be it remembered, of persons who prove 
 their desire to secure solvency and good manage- 
 ment by availing themselves of the advice and pro- 
 tection afforded by the law) are at this moment 
 eminently unsafe. It behoves the managers and the 
 members of these societies to bestir themselves with- 
 out delay, and ascertain by means of an Actuary 
 what their financial position is. So general is the 
 ignorance both of managers and members on this 
 vital question, that it is a common practice to 
 assume that the few hundreds of capital, the bulk 
 of which is probably invested at a high rate of in- 
 terest in some local speculation, means surplus 
 capital. The prospective liabilities are not taken 
 into account at all, and a distribution of a portion 
 of the capital among the members is made. An 
 Actuary would tell them whether they were in a 
 position of hopeless insolvency, or of insolvency 
 which by care and prudence and increased contri- 
 butions might be retrieved. Had the praiseworthy 
 efforts of the Registrar of Friendly Societies been 
 supplemented by the assistance of Actuaries, for the 
 purpose not merely of graduating the rates of pay,
 
 8 
 
 but of valuing assets and liabilities, much distress 
 would have been already averted from the indus- 
 trial and labouring classes. One important step 
 in legislating for the Friendly Society will be to 
 secure the appointment of such a staff, who shall 
 value assets and liabilities at stated intervals of 
 three, four, or five years, as may be thought best. 
 
 If such is the evil case of societies which are re- 
 cognised and protected by the law, what shall be 
 said of the c Brummagem' or ' Sharing Out Clubs,' 
 which are supposed greatly to out-number the cer- 
 tified societies, and which, from the terms of their 
 constitution, cannot have their rules certified to be 
 in conformity with the law ? 
 
 In almost every parish one or more of these 
 clubs will be found, the management of which is 
 usually in the hands of the landlord of the public 
 house or beershop. " Sometimes," says Mr. Tidd 
 Fratt, " the club is sold with the goodwill of the 
 house." The Sharing Out Club is formed on 
 the principle that a halfpenny a week from 
 each member will secure a shilling a week for 
 each sick member for a term which (indepen- 
 dently of all further calculation) is sometimes 
 three, sometimes six months. When this term is 
 expired a similar one commences, during which 
 half the amount only is payable, which is in turn 
 succeeded by superannuation pay, of which more 
 anon. An extra levy is made in case of the death 
 of a member, or member's wife, or child. All the
 
 members pay alike, and each one on joining the 
 club makes a verbal declaration that he is in sound 
 health and of good constitution, or states truly and 
 plainly whether he is more than ordinarily liable 
 to sickness or disease. If his statement is false, 
 he runs his own risk, and on the discovery 
 which his continuance in the club would not 
 fail to make, he is expelled and forfeits all 
 his contributions. The clever but unscrupulous 
 device of the annual dissolution of the club 
 deserves notice. This Phoenix of the taproom, the 
 Benefit Society, so called, dies once a year, usually 
 on the first Monday in May, and forthwith arises 
 from its tobacco ashes with new plumage, destined 
 for a speedy plucking. By means of its annual 
 rejuvenescence, it contrives to free itself of old or 
 burdensome members, who are left to the care of 
 the poor-rate. The poor-rate is in truth the 
 virtual superannuation pay of these clubs ; and 
 hence the device of the annual dissolution. When 
 a member becomes so infirm as to render him a 
 greater burden than can be conveniently borne, 
 he is reminded that out-door relief at 2s Qd is a 
 better thing than superannuation at Is 8d. The 
 advantage of his leaving the club is obvious, and 
 he goes, generally with a good grace, ' to relieve 
 the club and better himself.' He oftentimes re- 
 ceives a donation from the ' sharing out ' proceeds ; 
 but, whether he likes it or not, he will be passed 
 over in the new list of members for the year 
 ensuing.
 
 10 
 
 Iii the course of the last Session the Earl of 
 Lichfield moved for a return of the number of 
 paupers, in Union "Workhouses in England and 
 Wales, who had formerly been members of benefit 
 societies. The return was obtained for the last 
 week in August, when the numbers were reported 
 to be 4015. By the kindness of Mr. Owen, of 
 the Poor Law Board, we are enabled to state that 
 the number of male paupers in the AVorkhouses 
 at that time was 32,497, whence it appears that 
 about 12 per cent of such inmates were formerly 
 in friendly societies. At first the proportion does 
 not seem to be large ; but when it is considered 
 that the workhouse is the refuge of destitute 
 infirm persons, whose constitutions, and also of 
 the idle and vicious whose characters, would alike 
 debar them from admittance to such societies, 
 the percentage will be thought a high one. At the 
 same time we believe that if returns were forthcom- 
 ing of the number of out-door paupers formerly in 
 benefit societies, a much higher percentage would 
 be the result. Of all these poor men, there is but 
 too much reason to conclude that had the money 
 wasted by them in insolvent or fraudulent clubs 
 been properly applied, they would at this moment 
 have been in the receipt of a sufficient sum to raise 
 them above pauperism, unless in those cases of ex- 
 ceptional distress in which help, whether from 
 poor rate or parish charities, entails no moral 
 degradation.
 
 11 
 
 In 1865 the Post Office, which, mainly owing to 
 the zealous and able efforts of Mr. Scudamore, had 
 previously undertaken a considerable share of what 
 may be termed the banking business of the wage- 
 paid classes, came into the field of work of the 
 Friendly Society. It is true that it was empowered 
 to grant no more than two of the classes of insu- 
 rance (omitting their subdivisions), namely, annuities 
 and sums payable at death. The former unprofit- 
 able branch of insurance, as the companies have 
 commonly found it to be, was already open to the 
 public, though in a less degree, at the office of the 
 Commissioners of the National Debt. Unpopular 
 as it still remains, it will perhaps ere long be much 
 sought after by the labouring classes. It may be 
 noted that annuities have hitherto been offered at 
 advantageous terms to purchasers, and it is not im- 
 probable that as soon as tables can be framed to 
 show the extraordinary length of life which 
 annuitants commonly attain, the rate at which they 
 are sold will be raised. 
 
 But however welcome the Post Office may have 
 been to insurances of so unprofitable a kind as the 
 latter, we doubt whether the remunerative business 
 of life insurance is gladly shared with it by the 
 Companies. Be this as it may, the Post Office is 
 at present restricted to granting sums payable at 
 death not exceeding £100, although Friendly 
 Societies, by the last change which the capricious 
 and troublesome alterations in the law have per-
 
 12 
 
 mitted tlicm, may insure to double the amount.* 
 Nor can the Post Office effect insurances on less 
 than £20. Thus this most valuable and trust- 
 worthy ally in the great work of extending safe 
 means of insurance throughout the United Kingdom 
 has been grievously crippled at the very outset. 
 Skilled labourers who would gladly insure for 
 upwards of £100 are debarred from going to the 
 Post Office, and their proposals, unless they drop 
 them, which is not unusual, fall into the hands of 
 some keen agent of an Assurance Company. 
 On the other hand, farm labourers and men of 
 small means are excluded, for they cannot afford 
 to insure so large a sum as £20, even if circum- 
 stances in their opinion justified their securing so 
 much ' burial money.' And lastly, Endowments, 
 the most easily managed of any class of insurances, 
 requiring no medical evidence or proof of age, and 
 causing no trouble beyond receiving the contri- 
 butions for them and paying them when due ; and 
 which, moreover, are remunerative, and in all 
 respects would have been the best for the Post 
 Office to have started with — arc not as yet to be 
 obtained by means of the Post Office. 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to show the actual 
 state of Friendly Societies, certified and uncertified, 
 together with the facilities for insurance already 
 
 * By an Act passed in August List, such policies cauuot bo 
 legally assigned so as to give any interest therein to tlie as- 
 signee — hence an injury to the Friendly Society.
 
 13 
 
 afforded by the legislature, and it is a true state- 
 ment that there is at present no trustworthy system 
 of insurances suited to the requirements of the indus- 
 trial and labouring classes of this country. That the 
 higher class of labourers would reform and improve 
 their societies, provided that they had help in the 
 way of valuation of assets and liabilities and of 
 audit, is far from being improbable. But it must 
 be remembered that labourers in husbandry, who 
 have contrived societies which do not debar them 
 from their presumed right to a share of the poors' 
 rate, are not commonly permitted to join the clubs 
 of the more intelligent and better educated work- 
 people. The heart aches to record that their weekly 
 savings, though sufficient if invested in a trustworthy 
 and durable provident institution to raise them 
 above pauperism, are devoted to the maintenance 
 of treacherous refuges for poor men in distress, all 
 of which have a trap-door through which their 
 members eventually fall into the Union workhouse, 
 or otherwise burden the rate. 
 
 We lay stress on the statement that labourers in 
 husbandry have sufficient to secure them a better 
 lot than the Poor Law can assign them, and in 
 corroboration of its truth, point to the sums which 
 they contrive to pay in support of their benefit so- 
 cieties. Taking the cost of the club, paying say 10s 
 a week in sickness, and £5 at death, at the mode- 
 rate estimate of 8c? a-week, which does not include 
 expenditure in beer beyond that provided for in
 
 14 
 
 tlie rules, but not uncommonly incurred at club 
 meetings held on a Saturday night in the tap-room, 
 we have the labourer providing a premium of in- 
 surance, quantum valeat, of about 35s a-year. 
 
 On the supposition that the same labourer could 
 join a safe and well-managed institution, which 
 legislation has never yet offered him, and which he 
 can do only in a very exceptional way, if he happens 
 to live in a county where there is a trustworthy 
 society with sufficient inducements to join it, we 
 will ascertain what provision he might secure : 
 
 (1.) A man of 21, (most able-bodied men join 
 their clubs at an earlier age), living in a neighbour- 
 hood where wages are low, and where the sickness* 
 and burial money will be low also, will pay — 
 
 For sickness at 8s a-week and burial money £6. . 16s a-year 
 For an annuity at 4s a-week, commencing at 65 . lis „ 
 Or, do. do. do. . at 70 . 6s „ 
 
 He will thus pay, dependent on the commence- 
 ment of the annuity, 27s or 22s a-year. 
 
 (2.) A man of the same age, in a locality where 
 wages are high and insurance corresponding, will 
 pay— 
 
 For sickness pay at 12s a-week and ^610. at death . 21s a-year 
 For an annuity at 6s a-week, commencing at 65 . 16s Gd „ 
 Or, do. do. do. . at 70 . 9s 0J „ 
 
 He will thus pay, according as his annuity begins 
 at G5 or 70, £2. 0s 6</, or £1. 13s a-year. 
 
 * Sickness pay should be from ^ths to -*ths of the amount 
 a labourer will earu at weekly wages.
 
 15 
 
 The sickness pay in each case is due till he reaches 
 70 years of age. 
 
 Viewing with deep sympathy the struggles 
 which respectable poor people make in order to 
 maintain their families, and the pressure on them 
 when their little ones are numerous, and not yet 
 ahle to help their father and mother ; and bearing 
 in mind that, whether the rate of wages is high or 
 low, they do contrive to pay their contributions to 
 their clubs, we have in the fact of such payments 
 a proof of their ability, so far as the money is con- 
 cerned, to secure their independence, once give 
 them a safe system of insurances, which they might 
 avail themselves of. If this were done, some por- 
 tion of the Parish charities, at present commonly 
 dispensed to the dissatisfaction of all concerned, 
 trustees and recipients alike, might with pro- 
 priety be devoted to aid honest labourers, strug- 
 gling with their burdens, in paying a portion of 
 their contributions. At present, whatever difficulty 
 the poor experience in paying their club moneys, 
 such assistance would be open to objection. 
 
 If, therefore, our farm labourers have the pecu- 
 niary means of securing for themselves a much 
 better provision than that assigned to out-door 
 paupers, the inquiry becomes a very important one 
 as to the course which legislation should take on 
 their behalf. It is here submitted that it would be 
 to the advantage, not only of the mass of the 
 labouring population, but of the community at
 
 1G 
 
 large, if measures should be carried into effect 
 providing tliem with a trustworthy and easily 
 understood system of insurance, suited to their 
 position in life. That they can be coerced into 
 leaving their clubs and joining such an institution 
 is not to be contemplated ; but that it should 
 nevertheless be offered, and that its advantages 
 should be made clear to them, involves no invasion 
 of the rights of the poor, no interference with their 
 liberties. Give, we say, to labourers not debarred 
 by age or infirmity, the free offer of joining a safe 
 and well-managed provident institution, which will 
 secure them at a cost commonly within their reach 
 a respectable, though it may be a humble, indepen- 
 dence, and it will then be no longer their misfor- 
 tune, if they do not improve their position. 
 
 Effort has already been made, to which it is 
 right to call attention, to induce the authorities 
 of the Post Office to obtain certain alterations in the 
 Act which enables them to grant insurances, and 
 thus empower the Post Office to undertake the 
 management of such a system. 
 
 There can be no question but that this depart- 
 ment would, if the necessary powers were conferred 
 upon it, discharge the duties in a thoroughly trust- 
 worthy and efficient manner; and it is reasonable 
 to anticipate that it would slowly, but not less 
 surely, gain the confidence and support of the la- 
 bouring population. 
 
 One of two courses should be adopted by the
 
 17 
 
 Post Office ; it should either quit the position which 
 it lias taken with respect to insurances, and trans- 
 fer the business to an Institution to be formed for 
 the express purpose of managing a National system 
 of insurances, or it should keep the lead which it 
 has already obtained, and devote its great surplus 
 facilities to the management of such a Friendly 
 Society, or system of Friendly Societies, as is 
 urgently required for the public good. If it 
 remains content with its present sphere of work-, 
 it will soon be found to impede the work of reform 
 which it is yet able successfully to accomplish. 
 
 One of the few safe and solvent Friendly Socie- 
 ties in England, aided by several Boards of Guar- 
 dians of Unions, Clerical and Agricultural Associa- 
 tions of Kent, has already called attention to the 
 proposal to establish a National system of insur- 
 ances suited to the industrial and labouring classes 
 through the medium of the Post Office. A deputa- 
 tion, headed by the Earl of Romney, presented 
 a memorial on the subject to the Post-master 
 General, in the course of last summer, of which 
 the following is a copy. 
 
 To His Grace the Duke of Montrose, K.T. the Postmaster 
 General. 
 
 The following Memorial of the Directors of the County of 
 
 Kent Friendly Society, 
 Showeth : 
 
 1. That your Memorialists are Managers of a Society esta- 
 blished in the year 1828, for insuring a sum of money to be 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 paid at the death of a member, for relief or maintenance of 
 members in old age or sickness, and for the endowment of 
 members, and that the rules of their Society are certified to be 
 in conformity with the law. 
 
 2. That your Memorialists desire to represent to your Grace 
 that in the present unsatisfactory state of benefit clubs which 
 are not certified, or which although certified are insolvent, it is 
 their opinion that a trustworthy system of friendly societies is 
 greatly needed, inasmuch as it would furnish the labouring 
 classes of this country with the means of securing their in- 
 dependence and would thereby promote their moral and social 
 w el fare. 
 
 3. That relief or maintenance in old age or sickness together 
 with burial money can be afforded by means of mutual in- 
 surance at a cost not greatly exceeding, and in many cases at 
 a less actual cost than that paid by labourers for assistance 
 from uncertified clubs, and that the management and proper 
 administration of the sickness fund are in practice easily 
 secured by means of agents empowered to act on the claims 
 for sickness pay being substantiated by medical evidence. 
 
 4. That your Memorialists submit that by means of an ex- 
 tension and adaptation of the provisions for insurance secured 
 by the Act 27 and 28 Vict. c. 43, a system of friendly societies 
 might be organised through the agency of the Post Office, and 
 that many provident labourers would, as your Memorialists 
 believe, avail themselves of its benefits in preference to the 
 assistance offered by unsound and uncertified benefit clubs. 
 
 5. That they request your Grace to take into your favour- 
 able consideration the subject of establishing such a system as 
 would allow labourers to secure by a single policy of insurance 
 obtainable from the Post Office, sums in sickness from six shillings 
 a week and upwards, together with burial money from £5 and 
 upicards, and they also request that the insurances known as 
 endowments may be granted by the Post Office. 
 
 Signed at the Board of Directors held in Maidstone on 
 April 10, 1S67.
 
 19 
 
 This is in effect a petition for a Post Office 
 Friendly Society, which, being controlled by the 
 same central authority which is already managing 
 the business of annuities and sums payable at 
 death, shall make its way to the labouring classes 
 through the same channels — the country post 
 offices. The memorialists make no allusion to the 
 provision of old age pay, considering that, with 
 some alteration in point of detail, the same may be 
 offered to the poorer class of labourers under the 
 powers conferred by the Act on the Post Office. 
 
 There appeared to be a readiness to concede two 
 points in the prayer of the memorialists,* a reduc- 
 tion in the life insurances from £20 to £5, and the 
 granting endowments. For these purposes an 
 alteration in the Act will, it is hoped, be obtained 
 in the course of the Session. 
 
 The proposal, however, that sickness pay should 
 be granted by the Post Office did not meet with 
 the same good fortune at the outset, and we shall 
 notice the difficulties stated by the Duke of Mont- 
 rose, the Postmaster General, in the way of this, 
 the vital part of the scheme. Full consideration 
 of them fails to alter the opinions expressed by 
 members of the deputation at the time, that they 
 were not sufficiently formidable to deter the Post 
 
 * The members of the deputation were the Earl of Komney, 
 Lord Eitzwalter, Archdeacon Grant, Major- General Fletcher, 
 Mr. J. Hackett Hodsoll, and the writer. Mr. C. "Wykeham 
 Martin, M.P., was prevented by illness from attending. 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 Office from undertaking tins class of insurance, and 
 conducting it efficiently, and the arguments em- 
 ployed appeared to have considerable weight with 
 his Grace, and further attention was promised to 
 this part of the proposal. 
 
 In the first place there is an apprehension in the 
 minds of some who have interested themselves in 
 the extension of insurance by means of the Post 
 Office, that imposition in claims for sickness pay 
 cannot be properly guarded against, should the 
 proposal of the memorialists be carried into effect. 
 It is alleged that in small societies, the members of 
 which are commonly known to each other, there 
 is an amount of personal supervision which in 
 itself constitutes a check on fraud, and which can- 
 not safely be dispensed with, but which could not 
 be used by the Post Office. 
 
 We admit that the amount of personal super- 
 vision exercised by the members over each other 
 would not constitute a safeguard against fraud, so 
 far as the Post Office would he concerned ; there are, 
 however, good reasons for dispensing with the pro- 
 tection supposed to be derived from such vigilance- 
 It is an invidious and unwelcome task (as any 
 of our readers may satisfy themselves by referring 
 to the stewards of clubs in their neighbourhood) to 
 make one neighbour a detective of the sharp practice 
 of another, and the custom should wherever possible 
 be discontinued. As a safeguard against imposi- 
 tion it is entirely over-rated.
 
 21 
 
 The present rate of sickness in the south-eastern 
 district of England is about 27 per cent per annum, 
 in societies which possess the presumed advantages 
 of such protection. In the old established County 
 of Kent Friendly Society, whose members are 
 scattered over the. county, and who as a rule have 
 little personal knowlege of each other, the sickness 
 rate is little more than half that amount. The 
 Society's protective measures are soon told : (1) 
 great care is taken respecting the admission of 
 members ; and (2) when a member falls ill he must 
 prove his claim. For this purpose he sends a written 
 demand for sick pay to the agent in whose district 
 he lives, which demand is dated and substantiated 
 by a certificate from his medical attendant, who 
 states what is the matter with him. The pay is 
 due at the expiration of one week from the agent's 
 receipt of the demand. The agent is careful to 
 make all needful enquiries, and so long as the 
 medical certificate, for which a printed form may 
 be had, is repeated from week to week, he continues 
 to pay. In the Essex Friendly Society a travelling 
 inspector of sick members is appointed. In the 
 Kent Friendly Society adequate supervision is 
 obtainable in the manner and with the results de- 
 scribed. The agents be it remembered are at all 
 times subject to the inspection of the Society's 
 officers, their returns are tested with scrupulous 
 care, and any fraudulent use of the sickness fund 
 is as difficult as it is dangerous.
 
 qo 
 
 Putting the common honesty and fair dealing of 
 the labouring classes for the moment out of the 
 question, there are but very few inducements for 
 shamming illness among them. The impostors 
 belong to the class of idlers, who spend their leisure 
 time with a few boon companions, boozing in the 
 beer-shop. But when by the conditions of sickness 
 there must be compulsory idleness and no beer- 
 shop, but in lieu thereof most likely a scolding 
 wife and a comfortless fireside, the situation 
 becomes in the opinion of the pseudo-invalid 
 infinitely worse than working on the farm on a 
 stormy winter's day. And if he has no honesty, 
 he has sufficient acuteness to see that 14s a week 
 in wages are preferable to 10s from the club, 
 and he soon makes up his mind to keep in good 
 health. 
 
 The advantages of the personal knowledge of 
 the members as a safeguard against imposition in 
 sickness are therefore not to be compared with 
 the means of exercising proper vigilance and care 
 of the sick members possessed by large friendly 
 societies which extend over the counties in which 
 they are respectively placed, and it is submitted 
 that such precautions would be equally within 
 reach of the proposed Post Office Friendly Society. 
 
 A second objection to be surmounted by the 
 promoters of such a system is found in the state- 
 ment that, conceding the feasibility of the plan, 
 country postmasters would have a formidable
 
 23 
 
 addition to their labours in the duties thereby 
 imposed upon them. We answer that such has 
 not yet proved to be the case where country post- 
 masters undertake the agency of Friendly Societies. 
 On the contrary, they make very good agents, 
 and find the work both convenient and remunera- 
 tive. The amount of work in the management of 
 sickness pay is also generally over estimated. A 
 hundred members of the sickness fund do not con- 
 stitute a hundred sick members. According to the 
 average of the south eastern district above quoted, 
 (the highest in England), there would be but 27 
 claimants in the course of the year. They should 
 not exceed greatly the average of the Kent 
 Friendly Society. The payment of such claims is 
 at least as easy as discharging a Post-office order. 
 And even if no travelling medical inspector was ap- 
 pointed to report on sick members, there is neither 
 difficulty nor hardship in requiring the country post- 
 master to ascertain by personal observation how the 
 claimants are. Any addition to the duties of these 
 officials should be remunerated by a scale of pay 
 which we trust may be on a somewhat more 
 liberal footing than that of the Post Office Savings' 
 Banks. Endowments, sickness, and burial money 
 insurance are sufficiently profitable to allow this 
 without peril to the interests of insurers; and 
 if the sickness pay is in practice dispensed without 
 the trouble and risk commonly supposed, it is no 
 less true that the proposals to join this class
 
 24 
 
 entail less work on the officials than that for which 
 the Post < office has already made itself responsible 
 
 in granting insurances on life. 
 
 There are indeed a few details of great import- 
 ance in settling the terms under which such assist- 
 ance should be offered to the public, but the con- 
 sideration of them does not affect the proposal for 
 the establishment of a national system of insur- 
 ance conducted by the Post Office, nor need they 
 occupy our present attention. 
 
 Takings therefore, into account the advance 
 which the Post Office has already made in the 
 direction of Friendly Societies, the facilities which it 
 possesses for branch agencies coincident with 
 postal districts, the trustworthy character of its 
 officials, and that the system in question is at once 
 of a highly beneficial character to the community 
 in general, and the industrial and labouring classes 
 in particular, and also that it is of a remunerative 
 character, we again* respectfully urge the advant- 
 ages which would be obtained by a system of Post 
 Office Friendly Societies. If such a system did no 
 more than glean a small percentage of healthy and 
 industrious young labourers, and rescue them from 
 their village clubs, from the grip of the Black Bear, 
 or the mouth of the Lion, it w T ould be worth the 
 trial. And if there was reason for establishing Post 
 Office Savings' Banks when the old Savings' Banks 
 
 * See Papers in All the Year Eound, April 1S0G, and 
 Leisure Hour, March, 1807.
 
 25 
 
 were for the most part trustworthy, and doing 
 their work fairly, there is indeed much more 
 reason for a system of Friendly Societies which 
 would offer in the midst of the insolvent, 
 fraudulent, and pauperizing societies, with which 
 the country swarms, the means of indepen- 
 dence to hardworking and honest labourers. The 
 Post Office Banks, in addition to transferring 
 much of the business of the older institutions, 
 and opening up a new field of depositors, have su- 
 perseded the necessity for forming new Savings' 
 Banks. In like manner a Post Office Friendly 
 Society, while it would secure the co-operation 
 which the clergy and others would willingly ren- 
 der, would relieve squire and clergyman of all 
 further claims in bolstering up, whether by patron- 
 age in the one case, or by preaching in the other, 
 or annual subscriptions in both, insolvent or 
 sharino;-out clubs. Labourers would be advised to 
 join the Post Office Society, and some of them 
 at least, whose example will have weight with their 
 companions, would take the advice. 
 
 And further, such an institution would check the 
 nefarious and heartless schemes of those who trade 
 on the distresses and bereavements of the poor by 
 means of mock Friendly Societies. On the break 
 up of a village club, the agents of such traps to 
 catch men appear on the scene, and invite all par- 
 ties to join their improved new London Society, 
 which is so liberal, and withal so rich, that it will
 
 26 
 
 take in the sick and aged members of the club re- 
 cently dissolved, at the same rate as the healthy and 
 the young. The fraud is not discovered till claims 
 for sickness or burial money are suddenly repu- 
 diated; that is to say, till illness or death strikes 
 down the breadwinner of the family ; such heart- 
 less villany 'doth ravish the poor when it getteth 
 him into its net/ 
 
 Give to these ignorant but honest men a safe and 
 easily understood system of insurance, and it will 
 then be their fault, and no longer their misfortune, 
 if they continue to be the victims of such frauds, or 
 persist in forming new clubs of the kind to which 
 they commonly belong. The system must be both 
 safe and ' easily understanded of the common 
 people/ When it is remembered that educated 
 minds are often puzzled by insurance tables, it can 
 be no matter of surprise that the ignorant labourer, 
 who studies the graduated scales of contributions 
 and complex rules by the help of his pipe and pot of 
 drugged beer, rejects the benefits of the safe but 
 puzzling high class society, and returns to the al- 
 legiance of the club which is in his opinion all fair 
 and intelligible. In the matter of plainness there 
 are few village clubs that may not furnish a good 
 example to those who may be entrusted with the 
 task of framing rules and regulations for such an 
 institution. The anticipation is surely no unrea- 
 sonable one that numbers of respectable young 
 men as they come to understand the advantages
 
 27 
 
 thus offered to them, will turn them to good account, 
 and entrust their weekly contributions to the care 
 of the Post-Master General in preference to the 
 custody of the village publican ; and as they learn 
 that their new Friendly Society is as safe* as the 
 Bank of England, and able to guarantee old-age 
 pay, they will also avail themselves of this latter 
 benefit. 
 
 Passing allusion only will be here made to the 
 difficulties in the way of sound Friendly Societies 
 occasioned by the administration of the Poor Law.*)* 
 
 * " Every person contracting for life insurance or for the pur- 
 chase of an annuity * * has the direct security of the Govern- 
 ment for the due payment of the sums contracted for." — See 
 Eeport of the Registrar, 1867, p. 42, in speaking of Post Office 
 insurance. 
 
 f A Memorial from the Directors of the County of Kent 
 Friendly Society, dated Jan. 9, 1867, was also presented to 
 the President of the Poor Law Board, then the Et. Hon. 
 Gathorne Hardy. After clauses similar to that on pages 17, 18, 
 it recites : 
 
 " 4. That no uniform practice is observed by Boards of Guar- 
 dians in relieving applicants who belong to societies, whether 
 such societies are certified or not, inasmuch as in some Unions 
 their relief is withheld, in others an allowance, which is in part 
 dependent on the amount paid by the club, is granted to them. 
 
 5. That although it might be difficult to draw an absolute 
 rule for the guidance of Boards of Guardians, your Memo- 
 rialists submit that suggestions might be made by the Poor 
 Law Board which would tend to uniformity in the treatment 
 of such applicants. 
 
 6. That, further, many industrious and deserving labourers 
 appear to be discouraged from making the effort to secure
 
 28 
 
 That law is antagonistic to provident habits among 
 the poor, both in principle and in practice ; and, as 
 we have elsewhere stated, our f labourers have 
 framed their clubs with 'special reference to addi- 
 tional help from the rate. This they secure, and 
 with it their own moral and social degradation. 
 Alterations in the administration of the'Poor Law 
 are sorely needed in order to aid in the dutyfjof 
 emancipating them from a thraldom which appears 
 every year to be getting worse. Guardians of the 
 poor, who, contrary to the strict interpretation of 
 the law of destitution before relief, afford some help 
 where the club moneys are insufficient, do not suc- 
 ceed in convincing the poor that it is to their ad- 
 vantage to join better societies ; while in the majo- 
 rity of Unions, as it is believed, the test of destitu- 
 tion is enforced ; and no member of a club, whether 
 
 independence by self-help, from the fear of losing their pre- 
 sumed right to relief from the poor rate. 
 
 7. That your Memorialists are of opinion that one result of 
 the Act known as " The Small Tenements Act" is to cause 
 occupiers of tenements within its provisions, to be indiiFerent 
 to the burden of the rate, from the variable incidence of which 
 they are relieved ; and that, regarding the rate as a fund ior 
 their ultimate maintenance, they do not care to unite in efforts 
 which by means of trustworthy friendly societies would raise 
 them above pauperism. 
 
 8. That your Memorialists venture this appeal in the belief 
 that beneficial results, moral, social, and pecuniary, will be 
 attained by the rural classes, if they can be emancipated from 
 the influences above mentioned."
 
 29 
 
 it be good or bad, can receive one farthing from 
 the rate, be his merits or distresses what they may. 
 While we earnestly deprecate the application of 
 any portion of the rate, however small, towards the 
 maintenance of a better class of societies — inasmuch 
 as the pauperizing influence will be perpetuated, 
 and labourers who have hitherto been helping 
 themselves from its funds, will be confirmed in the 
 belief that they are only getting their rights — there 
 are and always will be numerous cases where the 
 members of safe and well-manoged clubs should 
 not be refused help, on a certificate from the mana- 
 gers that their claims require it, or other proof of 
 distress, 
 
 Before further alteration in the laws relating to 
 Friendly Societies is attempted, it would be worth 
 while to adopt the course already taken in the case 
 of Trades' Unions (with which the Friendly Society 
 should not be confounded), and to appoint a Com- 
 mission of Inquiry which should report upon the 
 whole question, and thus furnish a safe basis for 
 legislation. Or a Select Committee of the House 
 of Lords, in which the subject will be brought for- 
 ward ; might undertake the duty. Information of 
 the management and cost of Friendly Societies, 
 good, bad, and indifferent, would then be forth- 
 coming under authority ; and though the inquiry 
 would not reveal to public gaze any chamber of 
 horrors, such as was recently discovered at Shef- 
 field, it would clearly show the poor of the land
 
 BO 
 
 the kind of shelter they prefer, and the ruinous 
 cost of it ; it would expose some heartless frauds, 
 and recommend measures to guard against their 
 repetition ; it would investigate the obstacles in 
 the way of the development of good societies inter- 
 posed by the working of the Poor-law ; and, as it 
 made way for a system of insurance beneficial to 
 the community without encroaching on the liberty 
 of the citizen, it would supply a solution of the 
 problem of the social and moral amelioration of 
 those who earn their livelihood by manual labour. 
 
 THE END.