Friendly Societies And The Security Act

Southland Times, Issue 23624, 27 September 1938, Page 6

Friendly Societies And The Security Act

To judge from the terms of a resolution passed on Saturday night by the Otago District Committee of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, friendly societies are coming to realize what a disastrous effect the operation of the Social Security .Act will have on their membership. The resolution, which was expressed in very much more moderate words than

some of the comment that led to its adoption, read as follows:

That this meeting of delegates to the half-yearly meeting of Otago District M.U.1.0.0.F. records its firm conviction that the Social Security Act in its present form will have the effect of so seriously impeding the work of friendly societies as to threaten their extinction. Believing that the interests of our Dominion will be best served by fostering the friendly society movement, the meeting deplores the absence of provision in the Act for the encouragement of societies and the use of them in servicing the scheme.

The friendly societies are strictly non-political, but, like the British Medical Association, they are being forced into public protest against the lack of consideration given to them by a Government which will heed no opinions but its own. There are many points of similarity in the treatment re-' ceived by the B.M.A. and the treatment received by the lodges, except that the Government has gone to some pains to placate the lodges, because of their numerical strength, while it has simply flouted the doctors, who are a small minority. But no number of assurances from the Prime . Minister can alter the fact that the Social Security Act now on the Statute Book has, in the words of one of the speakers at the Dunedin meeting, “sounded the death knell of the friendly society movement.” There is no doubt that many of the present lodge members will be unable to continue their contributions in addition to the social security taxation and will, incidentally, lose the benefit of what they have already paid in. But what is more serious is the fact that new lodge members will be difficult, if not impossible, to find. The State will duplicate many of the advantages that the lodges now offer and as contributions to the State scheme are to be compulsory many prospective lodge members will be left with no choice but to abandon the movement that has served their parents and grand-parents so well. Assurances that the friendly societies would be given a useful part in the new scheme that would enable them to continue to function, have not been fulfilled. The membership of the societies will inevitably fall and their disappearance can be only a matter of time. Even if they manage to devise new benefits not provided by the State it seems very doubtful whether they will succeed in attracting recruits, for the burden of direct and indirect taxation which is the price of the State scheme will make lodge membership a luxury. In the friendly society movement, the National Provident Fund and the existing hospital system the Government had three excellent foundations on which to build, with the assistance of the medical profession, a sound and serviceable health and superannuation scheme. But the Labour Party would rather destroy than build, and the lodge movement, a model 7 of private organization serving 113,000 persons and having accumulated funds of more than £5,000,000, must give way to the new State paternalism.