320 DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN
^150 or so being banked in people s pence in the course of the year.
" A greater effort in this direction was com menced seven years ago, in a Sharing Club, the principle of which does represent the people s own way of saving. Sharing Clubs had long been held in public-houses, and people owned one or more shares, paying sixpence a week on each share for fifty weeks, with the privilege of borrowing i on a share, for which they paid back 2 is. in weekly instalments. That sounds a very moderate rate of interest, does it not ? Well, if you work it out, paying due regard to the life of the loan, you will find that it represents about 25 per cent. ! At the end of the fifty weeks the total amount was shared out among the members. That, as I have said, was the natural way of saving, and the business was usually conducted in a public-house. The club was managed by four stewards, and there was a suspicion that before a loan was obtained the person requiring it would be expected to treat those stewards, and do something for the benefit of the house in the way of drinking. As the sharing out took place three or four days before Christmas, there was also risk of the capital sum of a shareholder being squandered in drink at a time when it would be more than usually acceptable in the home. We therefore set to work to run Sharing Clubs on what we thought better lines. There are four stewards, as in the
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