1893 - State Library Information Center

CO-OPERATIVE BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS. 461There will, of course, be a small fraction left undivided. This isadded to the amount deducted for probable losses and the twosums make the total of undivided profit which will be broughtinto next year's profit and loss account.By the adoption of this method of apportioning profits muchwill be gained in every way. Its extreme simplicity muststrongly recommend it to all who are interested in building associations;and if you take this into careful consideration and likewisenote with what ease an error in calculation can be discovered; how absolutely equitable its distribution of profits IB ;how little of technical bookkeeping there is in its operation, youwill, I feel sure, heartily agree with me that in this method ofapportioning the profits of a building association there is foundin a higher degree than in any other method that ease in workingand accuracy in result which should always be aimed at.'DEFECTS OP BUILDING- AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS*Michael Angelo was examining a stone by the roadside, andupon being asked by some one passing, " What are you going todo with that?" replied, " There's an angel in this stone, and I'm.going to get it out." • There is an angel in building and loanassociations, and we are here to get it out.We are still upon the rough outside of the stone. There isyet a good deal of sharp chiseling and skillful carving to do.There are jagged corners and ugly projections to lop off, whicha blind man can feel; and he keeps running up against them•every day, and getting hurt, instead of cutting them away. Butas long as we advance, and keep within the well defined andparallel lines of logical conclusions and mathematical certainties,we need not fear to keep chiseling away.But the remedy for the " legal defects " of our present buildingand loan system requires a rush—a regular Princeton foot-ballruah—to win. We are in radical danger. We need circumspectalertness. Nothing but most liberal construction, in law andequity, by our learned judiciary, has saved the whole structurefrom ruin. Notwithstanding this broad liberality, so broad some-* William B. Smith, of the Washington Township Building and Loan Association, ParkBidge. *