General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 461 



employing' precautions against attack. It would rather have a 

 contrary tendency, and promote that steady coolness which is 

 indispensable to success in encountering danger, and which has 

 stood our race in good stead of old. 



M. About, in one of his clever French pamphlets, has the 

 following remark* : — " J'ai remarque que I'assurance attirait sur- 

 tout les hommes calmes, froidement bons, devoues par raison 

 plutot que par coup de tete, assez sages pour envisager sans 

 trouble la plus penible necessity de la vie. Elle nous est arrivee 

 (T Anqleterre ; elle reussit surtout dans nos villes laborieuses, 

 peuplees d'hommes sans passions, reguliers, tranquillement 

 actifs."-|- 



Insurance is not only a consequence but a primary cause of 

 this state of mind ; it is the mother of confidence. 



III. General Insurance is peacticable. 



I have shown that local Cattle Insurance against death by a 

 single disease on the voluntary principle is impracticable iri time 

 of plague, and it is difficult at other times inasmuch as the options 

 are so numerous against the insurer. 



If it were practicable it would be immediately taken in hand 

 as a commercial speculation ; but in this age of companies, no 

 great substantial office has come forward in the city of London 

 to speculate on this field. Yet they know well that the field is 

 lai'ge, and that the farmers in infected districts would receive 

 them with open arms. They conceive that cattle insurance, on 

 the voluntary principle, is impracticable. 



I will now endeavour to prove that General Cattle Insurance 

 on some simple principle is practicable ; and that the difficulties 

 can all be fairly overcome. This can be best done by the outline 

 of a system for its accomplishment. 



1. I begin by laying down this principle, that the system, to be 

 effective and equitable, must be strictly of the nature of self- 

 supporting Mutual Insurance. The owners of insured cattle 

 alone must be called upon for contributions, and the amounts 

 paid must be restricted to the sums which those contributions 

 will provide. Thus all eleemosynary claims, all charitable gifts, 

 any guarantee from the Exchequer, are out of the question in this 

 matter of business based on the economic principle of service in 

 exchange for service of equivalent value. 



* ' L' Assurance.' Par M. Edmond About. 



t " 1 have remarked that Insurance has special attractions for those who are 

 calm, coldly good, the followers of reason rather than impulse, philosophers enough 

 to look steadily in the face the most painful exigence in life. Insurance comes to 

 us from England, and prospers most in our industrial towns peopled with men 

 devoid of passion, regular, quietly active." 



