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and from the business they do are capable of much good, should their expenses be kept within the margin provided in their table of rates.

From the last balance-sheet we gather that the Friend in Need received for the year's sick premiums £15,329, and expended in sick relief £12,684. Their total life, sick, and endowment premiums for the year were £36,827, payments for claims £23,055. The expenses were £11,250, and their accumulated fund £15,860.

The Royal Liver received for sick premiums £4,747, while their total premium receipts were £84,030, the total claims and expenses (which are not separated in the balance-sheet) amount to £71,634, of which £3,764 belonged to the sick branch. Their invested funds being £39,036.

In each case the funds in hand are less than half a year's premium income.

These few orders and societies give us an insight into the magnitude of the interests involved, and almost startle us with the seriousness of the question,-Is every precaution taken to render such societies safe to work out their objects ?-remembering that even a society established on an unsound basis, may continue to exist for years, supported by a constant influx of new members, and is only brought to a standstill when its extension makes the ruin more widespread and disastrous.

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To obtain registration under the Friendly Societies Act, copies of the rules signed by three members and the secretary must be sent to the registrar, and if the objects are any of the three varieties mentioned in the Act, and the rules are not in contravention of the statutes, he will register and certify them.

The requisites for registration, the objects being settled, are:1. No such society shall assure an annuity exceeding £30 per annum, nor a sum payable at death, or other contingency exceeding £200.

2. Every society proposing to grant any annuity or superannuation must have their tables of rates certified by the actuary to the National Debt Office, or an actuary to a life assurance company in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, of five years' standing.

3. Each society shall annually furnish the registrar with a statement of funds and effects, or a copy of the last annual balance-sheet, and also returns of the sickness and mortality experienced, on a form provided by the registrar.

4. The mode of investing the funds is prescribed.

The advantages are:

1. Sums not exceeding £50 may be paid to the nominees or representatives of deceased members without letters of administra

tion.

2. Trustees may sue and be sued.

3. Cheap and efficient provision for the settlement of disputes by arbitration, and in default by the county court or sheriffs' court.

4. The society has a preferential claim on the estate of an officer

who dies or becomes bankrupt with funds in his hands by virtue of his office.

5. Officers fraudulently withholding funds may be prosecuted summarily.

6. Exemption from stamp duties.

While these advantages are very great, it can hardly be said that the requirements of the Act are of a nature to invest the certificate of the registrar with that potency which such a visé ought to bear. The restriction as to the amount of benefits which a man may assure for, may not be justifiable, but at least it is harmless, as the same benefits can now be as cheaply purchased from assurance companies. The restriction as to how the funds shall be invested is a little arbitrary, and does not speak a high confidence in the managers, who, we would think, ought to know how best and most safely to invest their earnings; but our greatest objection is that the whole weight of the registrar's certificate is as easily obtainable by a society professing benefits which their contributions will not warrant, or a society spending in expenses the premiums which should accumulate to provide the benefits, as it is by a society safely constituted and properly managed.

For the purposes of the Act any man is an actuary who for five years has been actuary to an established assurance company in London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, and under this definition any Peter Morrison who has kept his bubble office afloat five years, may certify the sufficiency of proposed annuity contributions, while the certificate of an able actuary of a large office in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, or Aberdeen, would be rejected. And even this form is not necessary for the registration of sick benefit societies; any or no tables of contribution are entitled to an equally effective certificate, and each write themselves "enrolled according to law."

Further, the accounts required to be filed annually are insufficient for determining the solvency of a society. A balance-sheet of receipts and payments, with an account of the funds in hand, is all that is required-no statement is demanded of the liabilities which these funds are supposed to represent.

In order to make the registrar's certificate carry with it the certainty that not only are the rules in accordance with law, but that the basis is sound and the proposed objects likely to be attained, we would suggest the following requisites to enrolment:

1. That all societies, whether sick, burial, endowment or annuity, should have tables of entrance fees and contributions certified as sufficient for the purposes by a competent actuary.

2. That a copy of the annual accounts be filed every year, and that at least once in three years there should be filed a valuation of the assets and liabilities of every society, certified as correct by a competent actuary.

And that every member of the council, or Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland, together with such gentlemen as shall have

received a certificate of competency from these bodies, shall alone be considered as competent actuaries for this purpose.

We submit these, as furnishing a standard for measuring the capabilities of such societies to meet their engagements, and thus secure a working man from the ruin and disappointment consequent on a failure of a society to which he has contributed for years, and to which he has looked with confidence for support when sickness shall overtake him.

Savings Banks.-In November, 1861, individual depositors exceeded 1,500,000 in number, and had upwards of £38,000,000 to their credit in savings banks. Never was so little accorded by the Legislature in return for so many benefits received. These banks were originally established as a boon to the working classes, and they paid a higher rate of interest than they received. The support which they received, justified the reduction of the rate of interest, and now there is a profit by the purchase of Consols, in which manner all the funds are invested, thus making the working men creditors of the nation, and consequently invested with an interest in the support of Government and order. But notwithstanding that the funds are wholly lent to Government, yet Government does not and will not guarantee the safety of depositors in these banks, but has now by the institution of post-office savings banks offered the advantages of its guarantee if a lower rate of interest is accepted.

As an example of the profits accruing to these banks, if we take for an illustration the savings bank of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, we shall find that the deposits are £513,718, and the profits are such as to leave a reserve to meet current expenses of upwards of £1,500 (the annual expenditure being about £1,100), in addition to the separate surplus fund account of £6,200, and all this cash beyond the old premises which they have left, and the elegant building in which they now occupy, one of the greatest ornaments in the town. Might not the depositors who have run the risk of the loss have some share in the profits?

Building Societies form a fund out of which advances are made to members on security of freehold, leasehold, or copyhold properties, repayable by instalments. It was usual and still is in some societies when the funds accumulate to a sum sufficient for an advance, to determine who shall receive the advance by selling the right of priority at a premium, which premium is either deducted from the advance or its payment spread over a term of years, and in our personal experience we have known £38 to £40 given for the priority of right to receive £120. Various methods have been resorted to in different societies to check this exorbitant premium, in some cases a maximum amount is fixed by rule; but, as might be expected, the restrictions fail of their object, being often the means of transferring the surplus premium from the funds of the society to the pockets of some speculative member, who after bidding the maximum and becoming the owner of the right by ballot, is ready for a considera

tion to transfer it to a more needy competitor; the result of these operations was that many of the more cautious and prudent shunned these societies, and would not avail themselves of so costly a mode of borrowing.

While the societies were so framed that all shares commenced from one period and the society ceased to exist so soon as its objects could be accomplished, it was always found that at the commencement borrowers were in excess, and high premiums were the consequence. There is now a growing tendency to permanent societies, which, receiving accessions of strength from time to time, can more easily adjust the proportion of investing and borrowing members, and thus high premiums are becoming among things of the past. This, added to an extended basis of depositing shares which is obtaining in practice, enables societies successfully to carry on without any premium. In some cases, borrowers are charged 14 to 2 per cent. per annum more than depositors are paid, while in the most successful societies of Newcastle, money is lent at the same rate as depositors are paid, viz., 5 per cent. This to many seems a dangerous and unprofitable way of doing business, it being more in consonance with the usages of trade to have a margin of profit: but these societies are different from trading companies, both depositors and borrowers being partners in the concern, and, being societies for the mutual benefit of the members, the principle of mutuality is easiest carried out by not creating a larger divisible balance than can be avoided. In a society where members were mulcted in heavy premiums, and the continual interest upon the original advance, even after the principal was reduced one-half or more, the injustice was not so much in calling for the payment of these charges, as in dividing them with other members who had not contributed at all, or had contributed in less proportion. Hitherto experience has justified the founders of societies who have charged and paid the same rate of interest; their receipts for fines, and other sources applicable to a management fund, having been sufficient for that purpose—were it otherwise, each shareholder would have to bear his proportion of the deficiency, and no injustice would be done.

Among the societies formed upon the principles just enumerated, there is hardly an instance to be found of loss through advances on insufficient security—a fact speaking volumes in favour of the care and judgment displayed by the directors. Yet this security is not the result of an improper parsimony in making the advances, the very great increase of business now doing demonstrates that the opinion is afloat that a fair sum may be expected to be advanced on each property, and that an industrious working man will receive, and is receiving, every encouragement in his attempt to become his own landlord. That these societies are safe in advancing a larger proportion of the value than a private mortgagor dare, will be seen at once on considering that each payment of the borrower reduces the risk, and so mends the society's position. Not a small advantage to industrious men borrowing from such societies, is the certainty that so

long as he continues to make his payments no one can molest him in the enjoyment of his property.

In the investing department members can withdraw their deposits or sell and transfer them without undue restriction.

Perhaps we cannot better supplement this paper than by placing on record the statistics of building societies in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Collecting from the last issued balance-sheets of the twenty best known societies, we find that their receipts for a year from members for subscriptions and in reduction of mortgage claims, was £86,775. That there was paid to members as advances upon property and deposits withdrawn, £147,150, while the balances standing due upon. mortgage amounted to £308,454.

Allowing for small societies not included in the above, and for the numerous new societies which have been commenced during the year, we may estimate the income for this year at £100,000, the advances upon property at £160,000, and the amount due to such societies, secured upon property, at £450,000. If to this sum we add the amount lying on deposit with the savings bank of the town, £513,718, we have nearly a million of money of the saving of the industrial classes invested in securities, while the annual amount so deposited last year, is represented by ;-savings bank, £95,033; and building societies, £86,775; making a real total of £181,808 for one year's operations.

Post-Office Savings Banks. By FRANK IVES SCUDAMORE. HAVING been requested to prepare a paper upon the post-office savings banks, I propose, first, to give a short statement of the work done by those banks up to the present time; secondly, to compare the work done by them and by the old savings banks conjointly, with the work done by the old savings banks only before the formation of post-office savings banks; and thirdly, to offer some remarks on the peculiar advantages of the post-office banks.

The operations of the post-office savings banks were commenced on the 16th September, 1861, on which day banks for the receipt of deposits were opened at 300 money-order offices in England and Wales. The regulations for the conduct of these banks, and the arrangements for the receipt and due disposal of the deposits, and for their prompt repayment, had been the subject of long and careful consideration, and had been so framed as to admit of the immediate establishment of a savings bank at every money-order office in the United Kingdom; but it was determined that the effect of the regulations and arrangements should, in the first instance, be ascertained by experiments at a small number of offices, and that if the experiment were successful, the operations of the banks should be extended. As the results of the experiment were in every way satisfactory, large and frequent additions were quickly made to the

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