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society formed for the benefit of its members in sickness, old age and death, and supported out of their hard-earned wages. But I will not dwell on this part of ‘M.’s’ letter, but pass on to the passage which I think requires correction. It is as follows;- ‘I have said to some of them’ i. e., to the members of one of these public houses and dividing societies, ‘suppose the money you have paid into these clubs and what you have spent in connection with them had been put into a Savings Bank or a Building Society, you would have had a good sum to call your own, and it would have accumulated every year. The answer is, but what should I do in sickness if my money was in a ​building​ society? They don’t generally allow small sums to be taken out. I have replied there is so and so has a share in a Building Society which will shortly be worth him fifty pounds. He had a long sickness some time since, and said he wanted some of the money. A member let him have some money on the strength of the amount due to him, and he has since repaid it without touching his share. He is a working mechanic, with a large family.’ And I am sure many will say a monstrously lucky fellow. Now this is a rather roundabout way of saying that Benefit Societies are all very well, but that Building Societies are better. Wrong as it is, this is only an old notion in a new form. There have always been men who have preferred individual savings to the formation of a common fund by contribution among working men. On the same ground, twenty-five years ago, Benefit Societies were opposed by the patrons of Savings Banks so decidedly as to attract the notice of a Committee of the House of Commons and to draw forth this remark in their report – ‘It has been observed that the hostility of Friendly Societies has been nowhere more strong or controversial than amongst the patrons of Savings Banks. Of these institutions, which are not referred to them for consideration, your Committee will only say that they are undeniably calculated for many useful purposes, some of which cannot possibly be secured by institutions of mutual insurance; but your Committee affirm, without hesitation as equally undeniable, that it is by contributions of the savings of many persons to one common fund that the most effectual provision can be made for casualties affecting or liable to affect all the contributors.’ This proposition, which is obviously true, has(sic) well illustrated by a writer on Friendly Societies, who asks whether the advocates of a separate and exclusive saving will be easily persuaded to save the annual premium instead of securing their houses against fire? Whenever there is a contingency, the cheapest way of providing against it is -