464 General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 



10s. Q)d. or hs. od. each, according to the purpose for which the 

 pony is kept. I shall subsequently endeavour to show that the 

 premium of insurance would not exceed the horse duty ; and 

 there would be this difference, that the payer of the premium 

 would get for it a policy in exchange. 



In certain cases it would be desirable to insure cattle at seven- 

 tenths of their actual value ; this may be undertaken, but under 

 such a system the means of identification must be secured, and 

 it must be done by individual policies — or policies covering 

 herds of nearly equal value — arranged in books like checks, 

 which could be transferred with the animals. Where salvage is 

 allowed, as it would except in deaths from Rinderpest, seven- 

 tenths of profit to go to fund ; three-tenths to insurant.* 



It will be found that the mortality of cattle varies with age ; 

 differs in milch-cows and bullocks ; is not the same in good and 

 in bad hygienic conditions. When adequate data are collected 

 these elements should all be taken into account, in the mean time 

 they would be recorded for future use. 



IV. Administeation of the Mutual Insurance Fund. 



The Insurance business would be partly of a professional but 

 chiefly of a financial character ; and it might be administered 

 either by a special department or by an extension of some of the 

 great existing departments, such as that of the Post Office, or the 

 Inland Revenue,! which have officers distributed at pretty equal 

 intervals over the kingdom. 



It is probable that the Postmaster- General would not be willing 

 to undertake the business. But as it is only necessary for my 

 purpose to give an outline of a plan, leaving the Government 

 and the Legislature to select the machinery, I will assume that 

 the Cattle Insurance Fund is administered on the same principle 

 as Government Annuities, and the National system of Life In- 

 surance : the National Debt Commissioners being the bankers ; 

 the Postmaster-General the responsible Administrator. 



V. Outline Plan of Cattle Insueance. 



The system, being general, can only be established by an Act 

 of Parliament. It would be made perfectly intelligible to the 



* Salvage is the sum that can be realised by the sale of the hide and dead car- 

 case of the diseased beast. 



t The Inland Revenue Department has, since this was written, enumerated 

 with its accustomed ability the live-stock of Great Britain ; and the Cattle 

 Statistical Department has been constituted under Colonel Harness, with Mr. W. 

 Clode as superintendent. 



