40

INTRODUCTION.

-which  963  furnished  the  annual  returns  required
by  the  Act.  The  number  of  members  amounted
to  490,584;  the  share  capital  to  £5,347,199;  the
loan  and  deposit  capital  to  £692,478.  The  sales
of  goods  during  the  year  1878  were  £18,461,753,
and  the  stock  in  trade  at  the  end  of  the  year
£2,281,898.  The  profit  balance  of  the  year  was
£1,565,497,  the  trade  charges  having  been
£1,306,804.  The  year  in  question,  however,  had
been  an  unfavourable  one  for  trade,  and  the  sales
and  profits  were  below  those  of  previous  years.
76.  It  may  be  interesting  to  compare  these
figures  with  those  of  the  year  1868—ten  years
earlier—as  given  in  a  previous  Work  of  the
present  Editor  (a).  The  number  of  societies
making  returns  was  then  675,  showing  an  increase ­
  of  43  per  cent,  in  the  ten  years  ;  but  the
number  of  members  was  only  209,000,  and  has
therefore  increased  by  135  per  cent.  By  a
strange  coincidence  the  share  capital,  which  was
then  £2,020,000,  has  increased  in  precisely  the
same  proportion,  viz.  135  per  cent.  The  loan
capital  had  increased  in  even  greater  proportion,
from  £184,000  to  £692,000,  or  276  per  cent.;  and
the  last  amount,  it  should  be  remarked,  showed
a  falling  off  in  the  year  1878  from  £917,000.
The  loan  capital  had  therefore  been  increased
fivefold  in  the  nine  years  from  1868  to  1877.
The  sales  of  the  year  1868  were  £8,113,000,
.showing  an  increase  in  ten  years  of  128  per  cent.

(a)  Law  relating  to  Industrial  and  Provident  Societies.
By  E.  W.  Brabrook.  London,  1^69.