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officers and other working expenses were only £55 8s. 6d, with £32 7s. 9d. for miscellaneous items, making the total expenses £1346 3s. 5d. It has been said “You are too high in your payments; we can’t stand it”. But taking the number of members at 700 (although I am sorry to say it is only 690 now) your payments must have been 8/6 per quarter, instead of 7/6, according to the rate of expenditure. And here an alteration comes in. That the old members should not press too heavily on the young ones, we were obliged to reduce the annuities from 8s. to 6s. per week, and the funeral money has been reduced from £24 to £15. That has been done to curtail expenses and to bring the quarterly payments lower; although in comparison with the benefits of other societies the Old Friendly was a long way from paying too high. Many men, who could not go into figures could not understand this. Although 8/6 may seem to be a great sum, I must tell you that if an alteration had not been made, 10/6 or 12/- per quarter might have been wanted. Mr. Tidd Pratt said that a society might flourish for twenty years and then begin to go down hill; but we have prospered for 35 years [applause], although I am sorry to say we are going downhill now [no applause]. Not more so, however, than our sister societies will do in time to come, if they will go on in their low-payment [Hear, hear!] My experience on that revision committee has taught me something very different to the views I once had. Our members, when they revised the rules thirteen years ago, might have stopped all that “going down hill”; and had it been done only five years ago, it would have been much better for the society. I tell you that if you had done it thirteen years ago, we should have been about £1000 better, instead of a decrease, as at present [Hear, hear!] The thing is this – It seemed very hard to pull down old members who have been subscribing for years for a high scale of relief; but for the security of all it must be done. Next year the quarterly payments will be reduced to 7s. In doing that, some people may say we are wrong, but I hope we are right. Usually we have charged according to the expenses of the past year; this year we must go as the Government does – upon the estimates. Our estimate was formed when there were 700 members on the books. We calculate to have thirty members at 6s. a week, which will cost £468, and the sick, as last year £436. The deaths were taken at eight, the same as last year, and these will come under the new rule (£15 instead of £24), so that instead of being £174, they will be only £87 10s. For the members’ wives we allow £25, instead of £32 as last year. The salaries of officers will be £58 10s.; and then the printing of the new rules and other expenses connected with them will be about £30. Then there are the miscellaneous sums, which will bring up the whole to £1124. 16s. We are allowed to spend the interest of the stock, which is about £150; so that there will be £974 16s. to provide. Our payments -