FRIENDLY SOCIETY FINANCE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 29 May 1919, Page 5

FRIENDLY SOCIETY FINANCE

AND THE WAR

(BY TELEGRAPH— PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

r . • , WELLINGTON, May 28. Cabinet has dealt with the matters A l.n lin d other Ministers of the Crown B tieti_ epUtatl<m fr°m the ****** Ch^ RTv: A i,H^ nn-n Minister in Uiaige of Friendly Societies, made a t?£TrLTf GSUP\ Ct in conneSioS rehthfa _ mad + c b? a deputation i elating to the maternity allowance He was pleased to say thai the recoml mcndation made by 'the Hon AM Myers, Minister in Charge of the National Provident Fund, had been an proved, wth the result'"that th?L2 sary legislation would be prepared^ laise the allowance to members of friendly societies from £4 to £6 and to increase the wages limitation for this allowance, for all persons in the t4 ™ln iTlendly societies to £250. ti, t?°?\_- A- Hanan safd that throughout the war he had given the question of friendly society finance anxious consideration. The decision i_,^¥ ct f% -funS s against the ™ mortality of friendly societies' members which resulted in the establishment of a fund for the purpose, had been successrully carried out. Without this help, the loss of about £70,000 would have fallen upon the friendly societies' benefit funds, but this deficiency had now been reduced to a minimum by means of the co-opera-tion adopted. In this scheme the Government had further recognised that friendly societies were deserving or consideration on account of their soldier members, whose contributions being unpaid while they were serving with the forces entailed an estimated loss of £29,000. A scheme had, theretore, been provided to re-establish the pre-war position in the benefit funds of societies on this account. In connection with these two subsidies, the Minister said he was glad to be able to announce that Cabinet had agreed to the sum of £4000 (being the Government over-credit to societies in respect of these tAvo accounts) being devoted towards further reducing any losses the societies will incur in con- • nection with the war mortality fund. Referring to what he considered the most difficult problem to deal with, namely, "after discharge" sickness of soldier members of friendly societies, Mr Hanan said it was very desirable to initiate a system that would enable the matter to be handled on sound lines. In some quarters it- was expected that the sickness would constitute a serious drain on the friendly societies' benefit funds, which were bmlt^. on contributions quite foreign to the recent war experience. The Government had considered and agreed to the scheme submitted by-him, umder which the friendly societies should separate all the sickness of discharged soldiers from that of their other members and establish separate funds for the purpose of assessing and valuing the future experience of these members separately. The Government would subsidise the excess sickness disclosed in these funds to the extent of one-half. The Minister hoped and believed the friendly societies would cooperate with his department in the establishment of these separate sickness, funds, in order that this difficult problem might be placed on a good administrative basis as early as possible. He had arranged for the Registrar (Mr R. E. Hayes) to confer with the societies in connection with the establishment of the scheme.