§ DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Registrar of Friendly Societies in Scotland, on 30th November, 1870, certified that a Scottish branch of the Royal Liver Friendly Society had been established at Glasgow, and that its Rules were in conformity with law; whether it occurred knowingly, or through inadvertence, that, on 24th September, 1886, the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies registered new Rules of the Royal Liver Friendly Society, in which the registered Rules of the Scottish branch were ignored, and the rights and safeguards of its members, numbering in Glasgow alone between 60,000 and 70,000, and paying in subscriptions £32,000 a-year, were subverted; whether he is aware that the Committee of the Scottish branch complain that, under cover of its new Rules, the Central Committee are forcing upon the Scottish branch changes detrimental to the interests of the members of that branch; if the 1886 Rules were certified by the Registrar with a knowledge of their incompatibility with the earlier Rules of the Scottish branch, by what authority he registered and certified them; and, if he certified them through inadvertence, whether any steps will now be taken to secure the observance of the Rules of the Scottish branch of the Society registered in 1870?
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)(who replied) said: the Rules of 1886 were only registered in obedience to a mandamus from the High Court of Justice, obtained by the Society in September, 166 1886. The Registrar is not aware that any rights or safeguards of the Scottish members have been subverted. If the hon. Member will speak to me I will show him the correspondence.