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18
" Thus the Courts have had to pay out of their sick funds an excess of
£5,950 in hard cash caused by consumption, and this sum at 4 per cent. (the
percentage realized by the S.L.D. Courts in the 24 years is over 4 per cent.)
means a loss of no less than £9,526. But that is not all. The District
Funeral Fund has suffered also. We have seen that the 425 consumptive
members died 15 years before their time. That means that the District
Funeral Fund has received in each case an average of 15 years' less contributions
than would have been paid but for consumption. How does that work
out ? Taking the contribution at its lowest of 4s. per year, that means an
actual loss of contributions to the Funeral Fund of £1,275, or at \\ per cent,
(the district interest has nearly reached 5 per cent. in the 25 years) the total
loss is £1,766. The total money loss to Courts and District works out as
follows: —
Loss to Court Sick Funds £9,526
Loss to District Funeral Fund 1,766
Total £11,292
" Now, if the loss has been anything approaching these figures, it will be
evident what a serious question this becomes. It should be noted that
I have not taken account of the loss of contributions to the Sick Funds,
because if the members had lived the fifteen years they would have
been eligible tosick pay, which would have absorbed the contributions payable.
It will be seen that cannot apply to the Funeral Fund contributions.
" Well then, the broad fact remains that (on the above named assumptions)
during the past 24½ years the Courts and District of the S.L.D. have
suffered in their Funds to the extent of £10,000 or £11,000, and what applies
to us applies to all other Courts and Districts and Friendly Societies. What
an aggregate loss must the total represent, and how evident it is that from a
mere money point of view almost any sum of money spent will be cheaply
spent in ' stopping the leak.' "
Mr. E. W. Brabrook, C.B., F.S.A., Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies,
has pointed out to the British Congress on Tuberculosis that it is probable
that the care which the Friendly Societies exercise in the admission of such
persons only as members who are healthy and, so far as can be ascertained by
medical examination, free from predisposition to the disorder, tends to render
the proportion of deaths among their members less than that among the
general population, and he gives some interesting figures on the point. In
1900, out of 441 deaths among the members and wives of members of the
Operative Bricklayers' Society who died, 59,or 13 per cent. died from phthisis