110 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
SE 
ployers and supported to a substantial extent at the cost of the 
taxpayer, we concur in the view that the responsible department 
of the Central Government must be armed with adequate powers 
to insist on a proper standard of administration and to take 
effective action where any Approved Society falls short of 
administrative efficiency in any respect. 
239. We feel that withdrawal of approval, though an appro- 
priate weapon for grave disorders is too drastic a remedy 
for minor irregularities and that, moreover, it involves a pro- 
cedure which may appear somewhat too formal where great 
issues are not at stake. We are also informed that the 
application of the penal provisions of the Friendly Societies Acts, 
to which reference has been made above has proved ineffective 
by reason of the fact that it involves proceedings in a court of 
summary jurisdiction, a course which the Department will 
always hesitate to take except in extreme cases (Kinnear 23,496). 
We have carefully considered what powers might appropriately 
be given to the Department to enable it to deal effectively with 
defective, methods of administration on the part of an Approved 
Society where the alleged defect is not of so serious a character 
as to warrant a charge of general maladministration. The first 
type of case which may be considered is that of a Society whose 
rules contain some provision prejudicial to the interests of the 
members or inconsistent with sound administration and which 
refuses to make the necessary amendment of its rules. There 
are also cases where the rules, being based on the original Act 
of 1911, and having undergone no subsequent amendment, can- 
not fail to mislead the members. We were informed that when 
in 1912 Societies were being granted approval at the rate of some 
hundreds a week, it was impossible for the examination of their 
rules to be undertaken with the full care and attention that was 
desirable and that as a result some unsatisfactory provisions were 
passed by inadvertence. Moreover it is to be remembered that 
the examination of rules in 1912 was carried through at a time 
when there was as yet no experience of the operation of the 
Act, ‘and that the desirability of amendment may only have 
become apparent in the light of later events. It appears that 
a few Societies persist in taking advantage of this position and 
refuse to give effect to the suggestions which have been made by 
the Department for the repeal or amendment of the rules in 
question. And as things are at present, when rules have once 
been sanctioned, the Minister has no power, apart from the 
exercise of tactful persuasion, to secure a subsequent amend- 
ment even when later legislation may have rendered certain 
rules wholly inoperative. 
AMENDMENT oF RULES. 
240. We consider that provision should be made in the Act to 
empower the Minister, in any case in which the rules of a Society