ABSTRACT
Friendly Societies are, as our readers are aware, the Insurance Companies of the poorer classes. The three Annual Reports 1 which have now been put forth by the Registrar of Friendly Societies in Great Britain are full of curious and interesting information, throwing as much light on the state of those great masses on which all English society rests, as any series of authentic political facts to which we have access. Few people probably are aware how deeply-rooted the principle of Insurance is amongst even the poorer classes of Great Britain. The Registrar states in one of his Reports, 2 and not without adducing adequate evidence of so striking a fact, that “there are more Friendly Societies for mutual relief in sickness, &c., in England and Wales, than in the whole of the rest of Europe or elsewhere.” Between the years 1795 and 1857 no less than 26,000 Friendly Societies have been registered according to law in England and Wales, and no subsidy from the State has been granted to them as has generally been the case on the Continent; and, though so large a number have never existed at any one time in England and Wales, – many of them having been established on insecure principles, – there seems to be no reason to doubt that from 15,000 to 20,000 must be in active existence at the present time. There are certainly upwards of 9,000 such societies which invest a portion of their funds in English and Welsh Savings Banks alone; and recent inquiries show it to be highly probable that at least as many more have chosen other and some of them much less safe modes of investment. The Registrar estimates the whole funds of such societies at not less than 9,000,000l, the number of the members at 2,000,000, giving an average stock of 4l 10s per member, and he estimates the annual sum expended in relief for sickness alone at 1,000,000l. Nor is this in all probability anything but a minimum estimate. It [is] worth while to compare the result with the accounts received from continental countries. 3 In France, whose population is about double that of England and Wales, there were at the end of 1856, 426,453 members of Friendly Societies, with funds to the amount of 661,292l, or 1l 16s per member. In Belgium, with a population of about 4 1/2 millions, there are 211 Mutual Aid Societies, about as many as in Bedfordshire, – there are, however, some special Miners’ and other Provident 232Societies largely assisted by Government, as well. In Austria and in Bavaria, perhaps in Germany generally, the principle of union appears to be more grounded on common trades than common localities. In Bavaria, with a population nearly the same as that of Belgium, there are 119 of such societies, not apparently averaging more than 100 members each. In Spain they exist only in Catalonia. In Poland and Italy there seems to be no general institution of the kind.
