FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL. (Hansard, 23 July 1908)

LORD DENMAN

My Lords, this Bill is regarded as of considerable importance 256 by the friendly societies of this country' and as such I think it merits a few words of explanation to this House. When I say that the membership of the friendly societies includes some of the best elements of the working classes of this country and that the accumulated savings of those societies amount to over fifty millions, I am sure your Lordships will agree that their wishes deserve consideration, at all events, at the hands of the Legislature. This Bill has the unanimous support of the friendly societies in the country, and it has also received the unanimous support of all parties in another place. In fact it is really a non-contentious Bill. It has been supported consistently by the National Conference of Friendly [Societies] for some years past.

The Bill is really an amending Bill. It seeks to alter the law in one or two cases, and also to make the law clear on one or two points which have arisen with regard to the constitution governing the friendly societies. But there is one clause in the Bill of particular importance which the friendly societies are most anxious of seeing passed into law—Clause 2. At present infants of or under one year cannot be admitted as members of friendly societies. This clause would permit them to be so registered. I believe that the age of one year was originally named because it was feared that people who had charge of infants might cause their death by neglect or otherwise in order to claim the insurance money from their society. But members of industrial insurance companies are able to insure their children from birth, and I am glad to say it has not been found in practice that the evil to which I have just alluded does exist, or, at all events, to any appreciable extent. Therefore this clause only puts the friendly societies on the same footing in this respect as industrial insurance companies; and as there is some competition, I understand, between the two classes of societies it is eminently fair to the friendly societies that this should be so. Having regard to the at least equally deserving character of friendly societies and to the fact that they are probably better supervised than the industrial insurance companies and that the members of friendly societies have interests in 257 common and acquaintanceship in common, it is far less likely that the evil I have just mentioned would occur in the case of friendly societies than in the case of industrial insurance companies.

There are other points in the Bill, but they are really legal points of a rather complicated character, and I do not think that any detailed explanation of them is necessary at this stage. Clause 4 defines the word "security" in the Friendly Societies Act; and Clause 9 deals with the case of an officer of a society who is unable to account for moneys of the society but where the case is not strong enough to justify the allegation of fraud. This Bill, I may mention, is to be read in conjunction with the principal Act of 1896. It may appear, on the face of it, that the difficulties entailed by legislation by reference might ensue in relation to this Bill; but Clause 13 provides that, if the Bill passes into law, it shall be printed as one with the principal Act of 1896, and this confusion will, therefore, be avoided.

§ THE EARL OF HALSBURY

My Lords, I do not interpose for the purpose of opposing the Second Reading of this Bill, but I cannot help thinking that one feature of the Bill to which the noble Lord has referred was passed over rather too lightly. I sat on the Committee which inquired into the subject of infant insurances, and I am bound to say that the tendency of the evidence was that this was a very serious evil. Although it may be true that there are societies which are entitled to do this, certainly the feeling on the Committee was that the power of doing it as it existed ought to be checked—I do not mean to say absolutely prohibited, but that, instead of being allowed to get the money, the parents should be compelled to take the amount that they would have received in money in the expenses of the funeral, which was, of course, the point on which it was said infant life was insured in that way. That seems to me a very serious question not lightly to be disposed of.

258 As to the legal question, I do not know what it is. The noble Lord did not expound what the question was, but merely said it was for the purpose partly of making the law clear—a very desirable object if it can be done. Then the noble Lord said there was some provision which altered the law; but he did not state what the law was or what the alteration consisted in. As I say, I have not risen for the purpose of opposing the Second Reading, but I shall certainly ask for more particulars when we go into Committee.