On the rate of Sickness and Mortality amongst the Members of Friendly Societies in France

Extract

It is not without some degree of pride, that we recall the fact that England has taken the lead in fostering and extending those social institutions which appear destined to carry out the beneficent design of procuring the greatest possible amount of happiness for the greatest possible number. She has not been afraid to encourage a spirit of self reliance in the mass of the people, and to allow her working classes to associate freely in the effort to equalize the uncertainties of life, so that those who may have a little better fortune than the average may assist those who have a little less. Now and then, indications may have been observed of fear amongst the ruling powers lest this free association should be used for political purposes, and doctrines dangerous to the Government or the good order of society be thereby enabled to circulate too easily amongst classes who may have real wrongs to redress or fancied rights to assert; but, in the long run, good sense has prevailed, and Government has fortunately perceived that Friendly Societies for mutual aid in sickness or want, and other associations for bettering the condition of the working classes, gave them a direct interest in the preservation of the public peace, and formed by their very principles the antidote to the fears they had excited.