456 General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 



effect. This principle is interfered with for a time by the desire 

 of small holders of stock to realize the value of perishable 

 commodities exposed to extraordinary risks, and by the artificial 

 disturbance of the markets.* There can be no doubt that since 

 the panic of tbe cattle plague began, tbe consumers have been 

 mulcted of much larger sums than the producers have lost as a 

 body by the destruction of stock. The retail prices of beef and 

 mutton, milk, butter, cheese, and other articles of animal produce, 

 have risen to an extent which tliere are no exact means of 

 determining : and if the dealers have hitherto got the largest 

 share of the profit, that will no longer be the case should the 

 supply be really diminished. The owners of live stock in 

 England, as well as in Ireland and abroad, will in that case 

 ultimately get increased prices ; but the unfortunate farmers who 

 lose their stock — and any one may be in this predicament — will 

 realize none of the advantages of high prices, as they will have 

 little or nothing to sell.f The profits will all go into the pockets 

 of their competitors. 



Every owner of stock is in this case exposed to the risk of 

 excessive losses ; and yet we may reasonably hope that the 

 general loss will be limited. It is a case for which insurance 

 appears to be the natural remedy. It is not, therefore, surprising 

 that insurance prevails in Germany and has been suggested at 

 many county meetings, has been actually resorted to in many 

 places, and has been urged on the Government by Professor 

 Gamgee| and by such able men as Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. 



4. Insurance of everything except live stock is practised more 

 extensively in England, perhaps, than in any other country ; and 

 it is applied every day successfully to goods, ships, furniture, 

 houses and men. But it is by no means so easy a matter to 

 establish a system of insurance in the face of a plague, as some 

 persons who have not reflected upon the subject imagine. And, 

 after all, insurance does not prevent losses ; it only diminishes 

 their ill effects to individuals hy distributing the pressure until it 

 becomes so light as to be scarcely felt by the multitudes insured, 

 who are repaid by augmented prices and by the security they 

 all enjoy from the dread of overwhelming misfortune. 

 ■ 5. For the sake of illustration, let us assume that there are 



* See an excellent memorandum on the Price of Cattle during the Plagues of 

 the last Century, by Mr. T. G. Baring, M.P. 



t In Cheshire 42,922 cattle had heen killed or died of Rinderpest up to 21st of 

 April, 1866. In Forfarshire, 9452 died out of 37,501. During the same period 

 only 1G9 died in Devon of plague out of 184,203; in Kirkcudbright, 34 out of 

 34,G92 ; in Peebles, 5 out of 5975. 



1 See his evidence in First Report of Cattle Plague Commission. See also note 

 a t the end of Third Report of Cattle Plague Commission, p. xvi. 



