General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 457 



10,000,000 head of cattle in the United Kingdom : and that, 

 at 10/. per head, they are worth 100,000,000/. Now let each 

 owner pay 1/. a head, or 10,000,000/., into a mutual insurance 

 fund : then it is evident that, if 1,000,000 die in a year of 

 plag-ue, the fund can pay 10/. a head to the owners of the 

 1,000,000 cattle. Assume that the 10,000,000 cattle belong to 

 500,000 owners, and that the whole of the losses fall upon one- 

 tenth of their number : then each of the 50,000 will receive, on an 

 average, 200/. of compensation, to which eacJi of the 450,000 

 other owners who sustain no loss of stock will contribute 20/. 

 But this he may recoup in great part by the increased value of 

 the produce of his own intact stock.* Whatever expense each 

 fortunate owner incurs in insurance will be shared in variable 

 proportions by the whole population of consumers. I have 

 taken this extreme case to make .the principle clear ; but it is 

 not probable that in value the total loss of stock will amount to 

 anything like the above sum. f 



Eight shillings and sixpence a head on the cattle of Great 

 Britain, 4^. Id. a head on the cattle of the United Kingdom, will 

 pay at the rate of 10/. a head the whole of the reported losses by 

 Rinderpest. And 2)^d. a week on all, 6(f. a head on the cattle of 

 Great Britain, would pay at the same rate the loss of 11,873 

 beasts, the number dying and killed in the week ending Feb. 17th, 

 when the mortality was highest. \ This seems to show the 

 possibility of meeting the losses of cattle out of a mutual fund to 

 which the owners of stock have all contributed, and on which, in 

 the event of loss they should have an equal claim. 



The claim on the State for compensation cannot be sustained 

 without admitting claims to compensation for other commercial 

 losses, such as losses by the late tempestuous weather, by fires, 

 by the explosions of mines, by the cotton famine, and by trading 

 companies. § And the tenant has no equitable claim on his 



* See prices of cattle at Ballinasloe Fair : Customs Valuation in 186 -t and 1865 ; 

 also wholesale prices of meat at pp. 470, 471 ; and prices of milkj cheese, and butter 

 during the winter. 



t The greater part of the paper was written in January. 



X The price of a quart of milk is now 5cZ. in London ; it was 3c7. in the neigh- 

 bourhood. In ' Morton's Farmer's Almanac ' for 1866, p. 8, the average annual 

 yield of a cow is set down at 540 gallons — the wholesale price at Sri. a gallon ; 

 giving 360 shillings a-vear, or nearly seven shillings a-week. 



§ The author appears here tacitly to adopt a view respecting existing payments 

 ■which is prevalent among every class of the community, except that which owns 

 stock and occupies land ; if it be erroneous, such error should hardly be passed 

 over unnoticed in this Journal. 



Those who watched carefully the speeches and proceedings of genuine agricul- 

 turists in the autumn of 1865 and the spring of 1866 will, I think, bear out the 

 following statements : — 



1. It was agreed by them that, whatever might be the abstract right or wrong 



