Afterwards, however, decisions were given, founded
upon a more liberal interpretation. The
Building Societies Act, for several reasons,
will have to be revised within a few years,
and then it will be highly desirable that the
full principle should be acknowledged, that
the name "Building Society," which no longer
expresses the true thing, shall be put aside,
and Mutual Benefit Investment Society, the
proper name, be fairly substituted.

The act further provides, that the rules
proposed for each society are to be transmitted
to the barrister appointed to certify the rules
of Savings Banks, together with a fee of one
guinea, and by him to be certified. Until
they have been thus certified and duly
enrolled, Building Societies do not receive
protection from their Act; and all their public
doings render them subject to the laws affecting
Joint Stock Companies. These laws forbid
any society of men "to make public, whether
by way of prospectus, handbill, or advertisement,
any intention or proposal to form any
company for any purpose," unless the
promoters shall first register certain particulars
at the Joint Stock Company's Registration
Office. That is an expensive operation; its
omission is also expensive; for it costs a fine of
five-and-twenty pounds. The consequence of
this oversight is, that a check is put upon
those discussions which are necessary before a
number of men agree to co-operate in a fixed
way for any purpose. All discussions of that
nature must be strictly private, and no
announcement can be made until the rules are
ascertained and have been certified. A hinderment
of this kind was not, of course, designed
by the Legislature; it is one of those pieces of
clumsy working which sometimes arise out of
the friction of two ill-made laws against each
other.

But the most important oversight which
has to be corrected in the Building Societies
Act, is the omission of all means of control
over the money scales adopted by each club.
The law itself ought not to fix a scale, because
that would impose restraint on any tendency
to improved methods of adjustment. But it
is absolutely impossible that the ordinary
promoters of a Building Society should
possess that knowledge of the higher branches of
arithmetical reasoning which is necessary to
the formation of sound principles in that most
vital part of the society, upon which all its
property has to depend—its money tables.
Such tables should in no case be used until
they have received the approbation of an
actuary skilled in matters of this kind. No
Insurance Company among men of the highest
class would trust its directors, however clever
they might be, with the responsibility of
making out its scales of payment; and we
trust that, although the law permits them to
be rash, the members of no Building Society
will accept from their directors a money-plan,
until it has been pronounced safe by some
more competent authority.

Let us now come closer to our point, take
the example of a Building Society, and investigate
its mode of operation. We will look at
it first from its original point of view, as a
society to promote the purchasing of dwelling-
houses. These associations are now largely
supported by professional men and tradesmen,
as well as by the working class. In their
government, however, each man counts as a
man, whatever may be his money. A member
who holds ten shares has the same vote
as a member who holds one share only. That
is a wise arrangement. In pointing out the
working of a society, then, we may draw
illustrations indifferently from members of
any class. We will suppose, if you please, a
tradesman who desires to buy the house he
lives in, and proposes to do so by the
instrumentality of a Building Society to which he
has not hitherto subscribed. He looks out
first for a permanent society, which has a safe
scale, and then makes a proposition. Upon
the mortgage of the house, when purchased, it
is not to be supposed that the club will advance
its full purchase-money. It is able, however,
because the repayment begins at once to
advance three-fourths of the value; where, in
the ordinary way of mortgaging, only a half
could be obtained. Let us suppose, therefore,
that the house which our tradesman
desires to purchase is worth four hundred
pounds, and that he has in hand a capital of
one hundred. In that case, he purchases
immediately, provided that the attorney to the
society reports the seller's title to the proposed
property to be good, and the surveyor reports
the property itself to be worth the price that
will be given. The three hundred pounds are
then advanced, and added to the tradesman's
hundred; the house is bought, and legally made
over to him, afterwards being mortgaged to the
club. The attorney's costs are limited to a
contract price; and the deeds enjoy the privilege
of exemption from stamp duty.

The tradesman having bought his house,
becomes a member of the club for the purpose
of repayment by monthly instalments of the
capital advanced, with interest (constantly
diminishing, as capital is constantly repaid)
at a fair per-centage. According to his own
knowledge of his means, he makes his own
election of the rate at which he will repay,
whether in five, eight, ten or fourteen years.
He is fined for unpunctuality with his small
monthly payments, and if he altogether fail
to pay, the society, of course, must be
indemnified by seizing the security. The
terms are, however, the easiest that can be
accepted by a man in business without
capital, and a very small extra payment to
the Law Property Assurance and Trust
Society will secure, for the borrower, an undertaking
that all payments which become
due after his death, until the property shall
be redeemed, if it be not redeemed during his
lifetime, shall be made by them; so that his
family may be insured against the burden of