Page:Farm labourers, their friendly societies, and the poor law.djvu/21

 before the next meeting, when instructions will be given how to proceed. The custom is that the club is satisfied of the correctness of the claim if the board of guardians admit it and afford relief. It may be noted that the board, in its turn, attach importance to the fact of a member being in receipt of sickness pay; and in societies which give no allowance for anything but "total and undisputed incapacity by reason of illness to do any work whatever," the man who is too ill to earn his living, but not sufficiently ill to claim money from the sickness fund, may receive, and occasionally does receive, hard treatment from the board. The faulty system of espionage, which, as an adequate protection against imposition in sickness, has been strangely overrated, is strictly enforced, and falls to the lot of the stewards, though all the members are expected to assist by giving information if need be. The rules are strict, and properly so, in the case of sickness:—"No member receiving benefit from this club shall be allowed to walk more than three miles from home, without being fined 1s.; if found drunk, to be fined 1s.; if found working or assisting in anything of the kind, or if he be out after seven o'clock in the evening, he shall be fined or excluded, as the majority of members at an ordinary meeting shall determine."

The weekly contributions of the members are the same in amount. Objection has been persistently taken against the "uniform contributions," on the score of causing insolvency. That it is unjust for a man of 45 to pay the same as a lad of 18, both entering at the same time, is beyond dispute. But there is no great injustice in all members under the age of 30 years paying alike, and the vast majority of the members join on the younger side of 20; nor will the club admit new members if upwards of 35 years of age.

There is but one instance within our knowledge in which the contribution appears to be too low, and in that case there is a guarantee in the shape of ample "honorary" contributions. There is much in the notion of "all paying alike" which commends itself to the farm labourer; "all pay alike, and all fare alike," he will say; and if you inform him that equality and fairness in contributions can only be secured by a scale of payments graduated according to age, the man is puzzled, but not shaken in his belief of fair play.

Be the case as it may, the annual election secures the means of relieving the club of the man who becomes too great a burden for his friends longer to sustain. The industrious and honest old man, who cannot tell the difference between sickness and "chronic ailments and mere decrepitude," but who knows that he is ill, must go. In order to save the leaky vessel from foundering, the unlucky victim is tossed overboard, and falls