[210] The first Benefit Building Society which can be traced was founded in 1815 under the auspices of the Earl of Selkirk. It was a village club composed of some working men in Kirkcudbright, in Scotland. Other institutions of a similar kind followed, and were called “Menages,” and soon afterwards the principle was introduced into England. In 1836 the first Act was passed with regard to them.
[211] “A Building Society of which I am a trustee started some five years ago with a considerable majority of working men; but in the course of its operations (on looking over the list to-day) I find there are very few who can be strictly called working men left. The punctuality of the payments, the fines, and those arrangements which are essential to the proper working of a society, acting upon men who are occasionally thrown out of employment, and without means altogether, have compelled them to withdraw themselves.”—Evidence of Mr. W. Cooper. Committee on Provident Investments. 1850.
[212] A large volume might be compiled which should simply give a bare indication of the aims of such schemes and societies, including one set forth in a MS. volume which we have seen in the British Museum, entitled, Greevous Grones for the Poore, done by a Wellwisher, down to the latest benevolent scheme, and its list of patrons beginning with an Archbishop and ending with the Squire.
[213] Savings Banks are not free from an amount of patronizing, which is only very rarely appreciated by the workman, though it may delight the very small shopkeeper class. Mr. Boodle, in his examination before a Savings Bank Committee, in 1849, thought fit to relate a very ludicrous instance of this, which, though told to show the amount of confidence reposed in the names of some trustees, really proves something very different. “At one time,” says Mr. Boodle, “the late Lord Spencer was attending as manager, and a depositor put in a sum of money; he looked at his book when it was returned to him, and finding the name of 'Spencer,' asked the actuary who it was. The actuary replied 'Lord Spencer.' The man said, 'You do not mean that this is Lord Spencer?' When reassured, he said, 'Then I will give another sovereign,' and actually did put in another sovereign.” This must have been a red-letter day in this person's history, though it reasonably admits of doubt whether the incident would be matter of personal gratification to Lord Spencer, the wise and excellent Lord Althorp of the Lower House.
[214] “For the last twelve years,” says a living practical philanthropist, “I have been considerably engaged in the administration of Poor Law Relief. I could not disguise from my reluctant notice the painful fact of how large and overwhelming a percentage of applicants for relief had been, for long periods of their life, in the habit of earning wages, the surplus of which remaining over and above the cost of their maintenance, would, if properly invested, have secured them an honourable independent subsistence for the unproductive residue of their lives. Their frugal contemporaries, whom they scandalized by their example (and it might have been said, derided for what they considered their meanness), they further tax with the burden of their subsistence. They commit a constructive injustice upon their more provident fellow-citizens; and when society inveighs against the gratuitous pauper, not because he is poor, but because he has viciously made himself so, society is not unjust in such a retaliation upon its trespassers. The gracious law of England, which makes the Poor Law compulsory, would deal with scarcely more than even-handed justice were it to compel some kind of club payment too. And if it were an infringement of the liberty of the subject to compel my neighbour to support a club, it is an infringement of my liberty to compel me to support my neighbour.”—Meliora, edited by Viscount Ingestre, vol. ii.
APPENDIX.
(A.)
An Abstract of the Provisions of Mr. Whitbread's Bill, as amended by Committee, “for establishing a Fund and Assurance Office for Investing the Savings of the Poor.” (1807.)[215]
This Bill provided that the Office of the Poor's Fund should be under the management and direction of so many Commissioners as his Majesty should see fit to appoint under his royal sign manual; that they should subscribe an oath to execute their powers and trusts faithfully and honestly; that any two of them might together execute the duties of the Office; and further, that the said Commissioners might, with the approbation of the Lords of the Treasury, appoint some person properly qualified to conduct the business, under the title of Accountant, and also such cashiers, clerks, and servants as they should find necessary.