HOUSE AND LOBBY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3776, 26 June 1899, Page 3

HOUSE AND LOBBY.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION. Indications are nob wanting that the Technical Education Bill will'be pressed on tho attention of the House this session, and that a big battle will he waged over the details of that already much discussed measure. Those mnnbors who last session organised, .hen forties with tho object of opposing the Bill at every stage have not in any vay changed their views, and when the Bn' wit 1 , again come up for consideration in CpVnmit.ceo a very lively debate may he looked. forward to. Those who support tip measure are, however, confident of its ultimately passing safely through the Hov.se by a majority of two or three. FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. Tho twenty-second annual report by tho Registrar of Friendly Societies laid before Parliament shows that the total ' number of registrations during tho year 1898 was 21. Tho number of lodges whoso returns are tabulated is 388, and of central boil ir,« 34, the number of members at the end of the year being 32,670. 'the total funds on the 31st December, 189.. were;—Sick and funeral funds, £383,924; medical and management funds, goods, etc., £53,087; total, £637,011. Assets totalled £637,011, made up as follows: —lnvestment at interest, £480,631; value of land and buildings, £117,511; cash not bearing interest, £26,486; value of goods, £10,034; other assets, £1749. In the course of his report the Registrar says: —“Although New Zealand experience, so far as it was available, was last year utilised for tho calculation of a tiiolo of rates of contribution, the compilation of facts on which to establish a sound system of friendly society * finance must be continued, not only m order to completi the experience, bet also because, some of tho conditions affecting it may in the course of time uujergo an appreciable change. .All tho progress that has been made in any branch of science has been preceded by the tabulation of recorded observations. Without statistics .a forecast of the future is nothing more than an unreliable and inconclusive guess. _Thc power of prediction is derived from systematised knowledge. Many years ago official warning was given of a previously unsuspected danger to the finances of friendly societies in New Zealand. The exceptionally light mortality of the colony was generally thought to justify the assumption of a correspondingly favourable sickness rate. It was, however, pointed out that, on the contrary, tho probable effect of greater longevity would be to increase the average life-sickness rer member, and that a loss would bo more likely to accrue than a gain l o societies as the net result of the dissimilar experience. ■ Unfortunately, the expectation of a relatively light sickness has not been generally realised. Tho experience of societies valued in the office as at the end of 1897, for the quinquennium preceding tho valuation date, represents 14.720.5 years of life at risk.”

The accounts of the Public Trust Office laid before Parliament show that the department commenced the ii'ancial year with a credit balance of £9022 6s lid, and closed' with a emit balance of £11,845 12s 2d. Some comment is being made in the lobbios’upon the faetthat LieutenantColonel Pitt, who has just been appointed to the Legislative Council, and who is understood to have been all along a supporter of the Government, was one of, those who helped to oust the Grey Government in 1879. . An adverse amendment was moved to the Address-in Reply , and after a long debate it was carried by 43 to 41. Mr Seddon’s name of course appears among the minority who supported the Government of the day. A meeting of the Opposition will probably he held to-morrow for the purpose of arranging their plan of action for the Beashn.