labourers in relation to such societies? Do they
flock into them, and avail themselves of the
plan by means of which every healthy able-
bodied labourer might secure independence, and
obtain a comfortable provision such as never falls
to the lot of a pauper? They do not flock in. As
a rule, the farm labourers of Kent, for example,
will not join the society. They prefer the
"Brummagem clubs," of which there are
hundreds in the county, and unnumbered thousands
in the country. They leave to an inconsiderable
minority of their numbers, the honourable effort
of achieving independence by self-help.

It is a fact that, although the machinery of
the County of Kent Friendly Society would
place the bulk of the farm labourers above the
degradation of pauperism at a much less price
than they pay to maintain the sharing-out clubs,
the mass of the agricultural labourers refuse
such means of rescue. Why so? The answer to
that question cannot be truly given without
reference to the practical working of the poor-law.

Poverty does not prevent our peasantry from
venturing upon the struggle, for the labourer
pays more, as we have shown, for bad help than
for good. It is not the wish to manage
their clubs in their own way, as persons
conversant with the question can testily. It is not
the desire to conceal from the charitably
disposed the amount paid by the club in sickness,
though this weighs with some of the unscrupulous;
and most assuredly it is not that they are
careless or insensible to the blessings of
independence. It is the fear that, if they break
down for a time at any point in the long struggle,
before they have secured their independence,
their little treasure, laid by in the course of
years of hard and honest toil, must go, before
they can have help out of the poor-rate.

Pauperism and the beer-house friendly society
are thus joined together in delusive compact.
But once let the rules of the friendly society be
remodelled, its management become trustworthy,
its members divested of the opinion that
pauperism is never to be considered part of the
provision for them as a class, and there will be
little danger to the club or to the club-house.

As to meetings of such societies being held
in the beer-house, we shall not raise objection.
The remedy for occasional excesses and abuses
is to be found, not in interfering with the liberty
of the citizen, but in his moral and social
improvement. Apart from religious influences,
there is nothing more conducive to such
improvement than the labour to win independence
by one's own exertions.

How has the immoral persuasion taken
possession of our farm labourers that the poor-rate
is "their rent-charge in lieu of the soil which
they cultivate for others?" That it is for the
distressed members of the community, and is
their portion in lieu of the rood of land which,
under some semi-barbarous conditions, men
might live on if they could, is not disputed.
But how does it mean that farm labourers
should, by help of poor-law provision, be able
to marry many years earlier than middle-class
ratepayers can afford to marry; that they should
frame their expenditure on such a scale as to
leave nothing but their club when the evil day
arrives; that the club should be so contrived, as
by its annual dissolution and renewal, to throw
cases upon the poor-rate?

The friendly society is taken into account by
the guardians of the poor in every application
for relief. In certain unions it is feared they
form but a small percentage of the unions in
this country its members are not refused help,
but a portion of the relief which would be
assigned without deduction to applicants who,
through improvidence, belonged to no club, is
allotted to them.

A return showing the number of unions which
adopt this partial concession on behalf of the
benefit club would be valuable and easily
obtained by the authorities. It is, however, to be
feared that, in the great majority, the harsh and
strict interpretation of the principle of destitution
before relief, is insisted upon, so that the
sick member of a friendly society would be
denied all aid. But whether this be the case or
not, the fact remains that a heavy discouragement
is thus placed by the administrators of the poor-
law in the way of the friendly society.

By the act known as the Small Tenements
Act, the incidence of the rate was removed from
cottagers; and the owner instead of the occupier,
in all parishes where it was so agreed, was
henceforth to bear the burden. It was, said the
preamble, "expensive, difficult, and frequently
impracticable" to collect the rate. The term
"frequently impracticable" was held to be better
than saying "frequently impossible," although
the distinction was somewhat puzzling. But
admitting the force of the reasons found in the
"expense and difficulty, and the frequent
impracticability," they belong to a time when there
was not that prosperity in the country which has
since raised the wages of farm labourers very
considerably. Till this act is repealed, we may
search in vain for the remedy to the mischievous
view taken by the poor, which guides them in
their choice or formation of a benefit society.

For it is matter of experience that the
payment of the poor-rate would introduce an effectual
check oh the reckless and shameless system
by which claims are commonly made,
notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of the
relieving officer, and the supervision of the guardians.
Unscrupulous claimants who are encouraged to
get as much as they can would be denounced
without reserve by those whose opinion they
would regard, and the duties of a deserving
and much abused class of men, relieving-officers,
would be lightened of much-that is discreditable
to applicants for relief, and harassing and
annoying to themselves.

This new class of ratepayers would have
restored to them the parish franchise, of which
the above-named measure deprived them, and
such a privilege would help to secure prompt
settlement of the rate-dues. In nominating
or voting for the guardians, the farm labourers
might take some interest, and who would suffer