§ MR. J. HEATH (Staffordshire, N.W.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a combination of agents and collectors and of the Committee of Management of the Royal Liver Friendly Society has sought, by interference in elections of delegates throughout the country, to secure the return of a body of delegates pledged to subvert the delegate system whereon the 1629 Society is founded, and so to obtain a control of the Society by agents and collectors, contrary to the Friendly Societies Acts; and whether the Government can interfere to prevent the said Committee of Management from expending the funds of the Society in convening from all parts of the United Kingdom, and holding in Liverpool, a meeting of the Royal Liver Agents and Collectors Union, wherein the Committee of Management took part to promote their common design of subverting the constitution of the said Society, as settled by its rules and the said Friendly Societies Acts?
§ SIR JOHN HIBBERTThe Government is not in possession of any information on the matters referred to in the question. If the delegates of the Society should make any alterations in its rules giving the control of the Society to its agents and collectors, such an alteration would be contrary to the Friendly Societies Acts, and would not be registered; and, not being registered, would not be valid. If it is the fact that the Committee of Management have wilfully applied any part of the funds of the Society to purposes other than those expressed or directed in its rules, arid authorised by the Friendly Societies Acts, any member of the Society can obtain from the Registrar of Friendly Societies authority to take proceedings under Section 16 (9) of the Friendly Societies Act, 1875.