The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1890.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 269, 14 November 1890, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1890.

Sto tie cauca that lacfcs BSBistance, For the Throng that noeds resistance, Sor the future ia tie distance, £M the good that vo can do.

We have on many previous occasions urge.d the New Zealand Friendly Societies to comply with the recant*" mendations of the Government Actuary regarding their financial position. Some of those lodges whose promised benefits were declared to be in excess of theircon: tributions have since wisely their contributory scales. Others, fatuously relying upon delusive bank balances, which have accrued while the majority of the lodge members were young, cast doubt upon the accuracy of the official computations, and go on blindly paying the promised benefits to mtmbeis as they come upon the funds, although it is as certain as that two and two make lour, that long before the claims of many o( those who are now exercising much self-denial in order to keep square with their lodges can fall due, these bodies will have bqen obliged to suspend payment.

The same kind of thing has gone on in England, ever since these benefit Societies fpundecl. The competition between rival Orders and Lodges, and the self-interested efforts of the elderly members, who, of course, profited by the low scale of contributions at the expense of members in the prjrue of life, thwarted every endeavour to inaugurate reforms; but a bomb-shell has suddenly fallen into the camp of the Ancient Order of Foresters, with such startling effect that the weakness of the position can no longer be concealed, and members have now commenced in earnest to carry out reformatory measures. . The recent valuation of the funds of the courts and districts of the Order mentioned has revealed a deficiency of ,-£2,770,251, against which there is a set-off of only .£137,769. The deficiency has been the growtn of years. Beginning in ignorance of actuarial principles when settling the scales of contributions and benefits, it has been continued long after the more intelligent members of the Order had begun to perceive whither they were drifting. Lodges making default from time to time continued to receive help from the High Court cf Relief Fund, without any effort upon their own part to set their houses in order and avoid a repetition of the policy which had landed them in the slough of financial insolvency. All this is now to be changed. Under a neyv law, the High Court will only meet one-half of the deficiency of any lodge which is reported to have a relative degree of solvency of less than fifteen shillings. And even this payment, extended over a series of years, will be conditional upon the lodge satisfying the Executive Council that it is carrying out measures which will set itself straight. Although a deficit of nearly sterling is alarming, the ease of the Order is far from being hopeless. It possesses a membership of 670,000, and distributed over such an army of contributors the payments necessary to gradually build up the Order will not be seriously oppressive. ]STqw that the situation has been resolutely faced, the future is comparatively bright. We hope that our own lodges will follow the good example.