MAJORITY REPORT. 
J 3 
members and their employers, and that any surplus disclosed on 
the periodical valuation of its assets and liabilities shall remain 
at the disposal of the Society to be used only in the provision of 
additional benefits for its own members, as those members shall 
determine. The institution of the Approved Society system was 
doubtless due to the fact that long before the provision of 
monetary aid for the worker in times of sickness and disable- 
ment, or of the necessary medical treatment for his restoration 
to health was accepted as a subject of public responsibility, the 
want had been met to a large extent by the provident efforts of 
the people themselves. These effects were expressed in the insti- 
tution of the Friendly Socities which existed in almost every part 
of the country and of the benefit side of the Trade Union move- 
ment which was almost equally widely distributed. The majority 
of these bodies were firmly established and well organised, and 
enjoyed in their operations the protection conferred by various 
Acts of Parliament. So considerably had these movements 
appealed to the wage-earning classes that at the time when the 
Act was passed they were estimated to include among their 
members about one-third of the total population to be brought 
within the scope of the National Scheme. It was evidently felt 
that the use of these existing agencies would be of the utmost 
assistance, in bringing the new Scheme into operation and in- 
deed that a Scheme which failed to build upon the foundation 
already laid by voluntary action of such a widespread character 
would have but little prospect of successful survival. 
199. In a sense, therefore, it may be said that the adoption 
of the Approved Society system was not merely imposed on 
Parliament in 1911 as an essential condition of a workable 
scheme in the conditions of the time, but that it was justified 
by the necessity of retaining under a scheme imposed by the 
State the general features of a system of Insurance which had 
been evolved by the people themselves in their voluntary and 
unprompted efforts to meet their own requirements. 
NUMBERS, TYPES AND MEMBERSHIP OF SOCIETIES. 
200. Approved Societies are of many different types, the 
chief being Friendly Societies (with or without branches), Trade 
Unions, Societies formed by Industrial Assurance Companies 
or Collecting Societies, and Employers’ Provident Funds for 
persons in the service of particular employers. 
201. In the first draft of the Bill of 1911 a minimum member- 
ship of 10,000 insured persons was required as a condition 
of the approval of a Society, but this limit was abandoned before 
the Bill became law, and it was left open to any body of insured 
persons, however small in number, to apply to become an 
Approved Society. As a result, the number of Societies which 
secured approval at the commencement of the Scheme was very