§ MR. BILL (Staffordshire, Leek)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Government have taken into consideration the statement contained in Table 8 of the last Report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies (1891), with reference to the state of the funds of those Societies; and whether, in view of the Chief Registrar's admission that he is unable to adequately enforce the law against those Societies which do not comply with the requirements of the Acts in respect of Annual Returns and Valuations, the Government will endeavour to give him additional and sufficient powers for that purpose, in order to safeguard, as far as possible, the savings of the working classes?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTThe Avoids used by the Chief Registrar were not "an adequate enforcement of the law," but an "exhaustive enforcement" of it. In the years 1891–2 the Law Clerk of the Friendly Societies Registry conducted 110 prosecutions, and the Chief Registrar is not of opinion that a larger number of prosecutions is necessary for the adequate enforcement of the law. This view appears to me to be confirmed by the large increase in the number of Annual Returns and Valuations received between the years 1882 and 1892.