THRIFT INSTITUTIONS: SUMMARY OF REGISTERED PROVIDENT SOCIETIES
AND CERTIFIED AND POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS AT DEC. 31st, 1907.

Nature of Institution.No. of
Returns.		No. of
Members.		Funds.
Building Societies:£
Incorporated Societies1,852565,04757,300,118
Unincorporated Societies5858,00015,989,111
1,910623,04773,289,229
Friendly Societies, etc.:
Ordinary Friendly Societies6,5633,416,86919,346,567
Societies having Branches20,6402,710,43725,610,365
Collecting Friendly Societies559,010,5749,946,447
Benevolent Societies7329,716337,393
Working Men's Clubs1,036272,847381,463
Specially Authorised Societies16270,980532,717
Specially Authorised Loan Societies618141,850897,784
Medical Societies96313,75565,513
Cattle Insurance Societies604,0298,570
Shop Clubs712,2071,349
29,31015,983,26457,128,168
Co-operative Societies:
Industries and Trades2,2672,461,02853,788,917
Businesses399108,550984,680
Land Societies14618,6311,619,716
2,8122,588,20956,393,313

Trade Unions6521,973,5606,424,176
Workmen's Compensation Schemes (1)5999,371164,560
Friends of Labour Loan Societies24833,576260,905
Total Registered Provident Societies34,99121,301,027193,660,351
Banks.Depositors.Deposits.
Railway Savings Banks1864,1265,865,072
Trustee Savings Banks (including Investments in Stock)2221,780,21461,729,588
Post Office Savings Bank (including Investments in Stock)15,16610,692,555178,033,974
Total Certified and Post Office Savings Banks15,40612,536,895245,628,634


Grand Total		50,39733,837,922439,288,985

(1) The figures given include 64,700 members, and £105,475 funds undistributed, at 31st December 1907, in respect of Schemes whose Certificates had expired or were revoked at that date.

Note.—Where Returns are made to a date other than 31st December the particulars at the nearest date available are given.

On the other hand, it would be a profound mistake to regard the sum shown—£439,000,000—as belonging entirely to manual workers. No small part of the funds of building societies, savings banks, etc., belong to the middle classes, and even professional men do not disdain to purchase houses through building societies.

Additions must be made for the tiny stocks of little shopkeepers and the "furniture" in poor houses, but on the latter account those who know what the furniture of the poor usually consists of will make modest estimates of its value. Its exchange value is almost negligible, and its value in use is that it is a factor in the sordid discomfort of the poor home, being in that respect not unworthy of the ugly walls which enclose it.

Altogether it is probable that we may estimate the total property of the poor at less than £500,000,000 in 1908, and regard this sum as belonging chiefly to a great mass of people, forming by far the greater part of the 39,000,000 persons under the line of Income Tax exemption. Probably about £15,000,000 of this sum passes at death per annum, and only a small part of it, chiefly the house property, comes under review by Somerset House.

With the facts we have reviewed we are in a position to arrive at a just idea of the respective proportions of rich and poor estates. On page 59 will be found a table which shows the nature of those proportions. I have taken the averages of the past five years arrived at in the tables on pages 52-53, and have made a rough division between rich and poor by drawing the line at the possession of property worth £1,000 net capital value.

To give a true idea of the division of deaths in the two classes, it is necessary to make allowance in the rich class for the deaths of the children of the well-to-do. It may be taken that, in addition to the 20,000 adults who die every year possessed of estates worth upwards of £1,000, 7,500 children and young persons die in well-to-do homes. I then place in the upper part of the table the number of deaths remaining after deduction from 683,000 of all the other figures in the table.