AMOUNT EXPENDED IN BENEFITS DURING THIRTY-ONE YEARS.

Donation
Sick

441,891

215,709

36,900

140,135

1,876,234

Benevolent Grants

48,927

Assistance to our own and other trades.........

48,322

£1,973,483

Despite this expenditure of nearly two millions of pounds sterling, the Society has saved a large fund to meet contingencies, and at the close of the December quarter of 1881, had a balance in hand of £145,957.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

The preceding records of the financial doings of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers have many smaller but very handsome counterparts in other trade unions. The figures prove that these institutions are doing good work as legitimate friendly societies, and that they are doing a worthy part individually and collectively in promoting a wise and beneficent appreciation of the principles of thrift.

BUILDING SOCIETIES WITH

REFERENCE TO THRIFT.

ONE'S OWN HOME.

THERE is nothing so enticing as the idea of buying the house you live in by merely paying the rent. That is the idea that is usually put forward by those who are interested in promoting building societies.

ORIGIN.

These institutions take their origin from the various Acts of Parliament relating to them, the first of which was passed in 1836. Since that time, building societies have grown to such a degree as to have become gigantic in their proportions, and the number of members throughout the country-persons who have found the vast sums of money by which building societies have been and are supported—would seem to furnish a practical contradiction to those who would assert that thriftiness is not cultivated in England.

ACQUISITION OF RICHES.

It is natural, if not right, that persons who are in pinched circumstances should envy those who are conspicuously rich; the more so that many rich persons, perhaps the majority, did not acquire the riches themselves, but inherited them from their predecessors. But whether the possessor of riches accumulated them himself or inherited them from others, we may feel confident that in the laying of the foundations of those riches, there was exercised a considerable, and probably a very great, degree of forethought, patience, selfcontrol, and probity, more than is possessed by ordinary mortals.

Precisely what may be said of riches in general may be said of the man who has acquired the house he lives in for his own. We may depend upon it the achievement did not depend upon merely amiable desires to do the right thing, but out of intelligent determination and strength of mind to do it.

INSTRUMENTALITY OF BUILDING SOCIETIES.

Building societies are excellent things in their way, but they are only auxiliary forces. It is a mistake to suppose that they will do the work themselves. Those who rely upon them to do it will almost certainly come to grief. Such organisations may be used or abused—they may be the making or breaking of a man; and when one leads to breaking, it is generally the man's fault and not the fault of the society. Notwithstanding, though building societies are not the monsters some weak and self-defrauded persons represent them to be, they require looking after and keeping in their places. If the member can keep the upper hand over his society, well; if he allows the society to get the upper hand over him, he is pretty certain to go helplessly under.

We here refer to respectable, solvent, and well-conducted societies. There are a few that are not as respectable as they might be. Some are not quite solvent, and others are not well-conducted. Admitting all that, there are so many that are thoroughly sound that a very moderate degree of judgment will suffice to select a good one, and to avoid those that are mere pitfalls.

THE SECRET.

Why there are so many building societies, why they are so attractive, and why so much money and so much property comes under their control, is in consequence of something which to the multitude is a sealed book-a secret. It is the keen knowledge of that secret that gives building societies so much power; it is the full appreciation of that secret that enables shrewd members to turn building societies to such excellent account. It is really worth while to enter upon a serious inquiry as to what that secret is.

To the bewildered but anxious lad, and the toiling and weary man, who never know what it is to have two weeks' earnings in their pockets at one time, it must often be a perplexing problem when they consider house property and the hopeless distance it seems from such as they are. Take the man, for example. He may be earning as much as his fellows of the same rank. He may manage, after paying rent, to buy sufficient victuals and drink, and to buy clothing and minor comforts enough to make life tolerable.

Familiar observation, and very little reckoning has enabled him to do all that, without much mental exertion or financial science. Probably he thinks such small matters are easy enough to buy when the purchaser has got the money, but as for a house to live in, or a row of houses, or a whole street, it seems to him a vain imagination to suppose that such a thing or such things can ever be his. Aye, he is not in possession of the secret What is the secret?

Perhaps you are unwilling to believe there is any secret in it! Very likely you think the only secret is to have the money! "Aye," says the toiling, weary man, 'you may buy houses, or anything, if you have got money enough; that's the only secret."

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Poor toiling, weary man: it is evident he does not possess the secret-that bit of knowledge that is so much power in the hands of other men who know how to wield it so effectively-the magic secret of the building societies.

READY MONEY.

So the toiling, weary man goes on limiting himself to such purchases as he' is master of, and which he thinks so easy, compared to buying houses. He knows that to effect his simple purchases he must have the money. He does not know that a house may be bought without the money! That is the secret, the whole secret, and nothing but the secret, possessed by the building socie ties, and turned to such account by some of their members. It is out of that secret that the house, and the row of houses, and the whole street of houses and streets upon streets of houses, have sometimes come into possession of one individual, whom the toiling, weary man looks upon with such wondering and innocent envy, not knowing that the simple possession and steady use of that secret has made the rich man out of as meagre opportunities as those possessed by the poor one.

Plain and valuable as this secret is, it is hard to be understood by many a a toiling, weary man, who is apt to be oppressed with a primitive simplicity of ideas. He has always been told-and he devoutly believes, and he has heard a very learned, titled gentleman say, in a very profound lecture extremely hard to be understood in general, but perfectly distinct upon one point—that the true principle is to pay ready money for everything and never to go upon credit; and the toiling, weary man, who has some self-respect, has always found that system answer best.

CREDIT.

To his extreme bewilderment he hears the very same gentleman, in another lecture, harder to be understood than the other one, but also clear upon one point, that, in the purchase of house property, the true principle is reversed. If you want to buy a loaf, or a cabbage, or a pound of sugar, or a beefsteak, you must rigorously refrain from buying unless you have the money to complete the purchase, and that is a sentiment that is received with unanimous applause.

STICKING TO PRINCIPLE.

There is something else the toiling and weary man has both heard and read, which is, that to be conscientiously faithful to principle in small things is the most worthy qualification for undertaking greater things, and yet the learned and titled lecturer tells him that though he must never purchase to the extent of fivepence unless he has fivepence to pay, yet, if he has any idea of purchasing to the extent of £500, he may do so without hesitation, though he has only fifty or a hundred pounds towards the amount.

It takes some time and reflection for a ready-money philosopher, who has carried out his philosophy in practice, to master this secret of the building societies, which are so much based upon the system of credit that they make all their proceedings subservient to that system, upon which their existence depends.

THE WAY TO DO IT.

Building societies, then, are organisations for systematically buying property upon credit, and that is their secret and their recommendation, in contradistinction to the work-a-day plan of paying as you go for everything you buy.

The secret, however, is not a monopoly of the building societies. It is possessed and extensively put in practice in the transfer of landed and house property under every variety of circumstances. Every solicitor, and every house agent who has houses to sell, is prepared to apply the same principle to the business as the building societies do, and, it is well, in the first place, to consider, when you want to buy a house, whether it is not as well or better to rely upon a business-like solicitor and to avoid the building society altogether.

Both the building societies and the solicitors are prepared to entertain this kind of business by means of a legal instrument called a mortgage, and hence the difference in the character of the transaction.

If you want to buy a loaf for 4d. and have only a penny, the only chance is to get the loaf upon the favour of credit, because a mortgage upon the loaf would be worthless, as, by to-morrow morning it would probably be eaten, and, if not eaten, then stolen or otherwise made away with; but

If you want to buy a house worth £400, and you have £100 to put down, there is not a solicitor or agent, or owner, who wants to sell the house, who will be unwilling to let you have the house forthwith on payment of the £100 and the execution of a mortgage for the £300 remaining unpaid, because the house cannot be eaten, and the chances of its being stolen are so remote as to make the thing practically impossible, while risk from fire is covered by insurance.

This kind of thing is being done every day by solicitors and other agents who are engaged in such business, so that there is no necessity for going to a building society if you have got, in cash, something like a quarter of the amount required for the purchase. In some cases one-eighth of the amount will suffice, but that is rarely accepted. In some other cases, as much as a third of the amount is required to be paid, but that is rarely insisted upon.

Now, the most tempting thing in its way, as well as one of the wisest things the occupier of a house can do, when he finds that the house suits him, is to buy the house if it is for sale, and if he is able to effect the purchase.

Plenty of small houses are to be bought for £300 each. If you are living in a larger one and can manage to buy that when it suits you, so much the