462 General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 



Charity is an excellent thing, but its admixture with calcu- 

 lation is as fatal as it is corrupting-.* 



The reasons against a state guarantee are stated with irre- 

 sistible force by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in his letter 

 to Sir J. D. Lloyd.t 



2. Insurable Value. — The owner of cattle destroyed by plague 

 suffers not only by the loss of their value but by the interruption 

 of his business: as a feeder of stock, he has grass, turnips and 

 mangold which run to waste ; as a milkman he loses his cus- 

 tomers; as a Ijreeder he sees the labour of years destroyed. The 

 full market price of his stock does not compensate him for his 

 loss. It would, on these grounds, be desirable to ensure to the 

 full value ; but that is unsafe and impracticable. 



It is not lawful to effect an insurance on a life in which the 

 person insuring has no pecuniary interest ; and the abuse of ship 



* By this it is not implied that charity has not scope for exercise in a calamity 

 such as plague. I know no men who deserve more sympathy than such cattle 

 owners of Cheshire and Forfarshire as have obeyed the law, and done their best to 

 stay the progress of this disease. 



t Mr. Gladstone wrote as follows — 



'The reasons which first offer themselves to my mind . . . are of the 

 following character : 



"1. The difficulty, and not the difficulty only, but the impossibilitj-, of pre- 

 venting carelessness, waste, and fraud of every kind, from the first moment it 

 sliould become known that the ultimate responsibility (beyond a fixed limit, 

 which would at once be found a very, very narrow one) lay with the public 

 purse. 



" 2. The fact that in a number of cases particular districts and landlords have 

 already made their own arrangements, which must have been acted upon. Were 

 Government to move into the field, these good examples would be neutralised, and 

 those who have met their own losses would be called as taxpayers to assist in 

 meeting the losses of other people too. 



" 3. If it shall appear, as is probable, that it is to prevention rather than cure or 

 compensation that we must chiefly look, under Providence, for the mitigation of 

 the calamity, nothing could be so unfortunate as a measure like a state guarantee, 

 which, by relaxing vigilance and the ingenuity of self-interest, would tend to 

 take the minds of men oif a subject obviously of the greatest moment, and, as 

 clearly, not yet sounded to the bottom. This objection does not apply to plans 

 of a voluntary nature, where every man would be checked by his neighbours, and 

 each scheme would have its proper adjustments. 



"4. If the cattle plague should not extend itself on a large scale, and so the 

 losses of a severe character should be confined to a small fraction of the farming 

 class, there seems an obvious impropriety in relieving landlords, neighbours, and 

 rateable property from the duty of assisting, so far as assistance is necessary, 

 •those on whom the blow has fallen. And the precedent would be an evil one. 



'' 5. But if, on the other hand, the disease should extend Aery widely, the 

 result must inevitably be felt in a much augmented price of meat. The consumer 

 would then, probably, taking the country all over, pay the same or a larger 

 aggregate amount of money for a greatly diminished quantity. All those who 

 were not smitten in their own cattle would thus profit largely by the disease as 

 producers, while as consumers they would only suffer in common with the 

 community at large. How, then, could the community be asked to pay twice, 

 first for their meat in extra price, and secondly, for the cattle lost; while land- 

 lords and cultivators of the soil would probably, as a class, have their loss (as in 

 a bad corn year) countervailed by a corresponding or greater benefit ?" 



