FRIENDLY SOCIETIES NOT REGISTERED. 
143 
of tlie statute merely by not calling the contract a “policy.” 
Hence the commissioners infer that every form of assurance 
practised hy a friendly society is inclosed within the defini 
tion above given, and remark that it may be contended 
that every unregistered friendly society granting death 
benefits is within the provisions of the Life Assurance 
Companies Act, 1870, and liable to its penalties. 
The practical importance of this subject is shown by the 
statement of the commissioners that unregistered societies 
are in England probably nearly co-extensive with, in Scot 
land far surpass, the registered bodies. If the law be as 
we have stated it, such societies and their funds are in a 
certain degree of peril. It is to be hoped that the bene 
ficial extensions of the advantages of registration offered 
by the provisions of the Friendly Societies Act, 1875, will 
induce all such societies to become registered. The general 
principle upon which legislation with regard to Friendly 
Societies has proceeded is that registration should not be 
compulsory, but that the provisions of the law should be 
so wisely liberal that no society would, willingly remain 
without the advantages of registration. There is nothing 
m the Friendly Societies Acts which need cause an honest 
society rather to abstain from registration than to be sub 
jected to it. They will not fully realise the intention of 
the legislature until unregistered societies have ceased to 
exist as such, and voluntary registry -has become universal..