546 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



stock, lie must leave the farm, and leave iu it a great deal of his 

 capital ; and, considering that no less than 26,000 farmers were 

 aflected by the cattle plague, it was surely desirable to endeavour to 

 avert that evil. 



There were, he admitted, a great many difficulties connected mth 

 insurance ; but he believed that, if the grand object were kept steadily 

 in view, they would vanish. Dr. Farr would helj) them over the 

 difficulties with regard to rates. He (Major Thompson) did not 

 think the rates need be as high as some had supposed. As to fraud, 

 he had great faith in the British farmer. He had seen a great deal of 

 the farmers of this country ; and he did not believe there was much 

 cause for ai^prehension on that point. Moreover, generally speaking, 

 if an animal were worth 20/., the amount for which it was insured 

 would be only 15/.; what temptation, then, was there to fraud? 

 The office only allowed three-fourths of the value, or IIZ. 5s. ; and if 

 to this there was added one-fo;irth of the salvage, the amount received 

 would still be only a little over 12/. Let him instance his own case. 

 He hapi^ened to be an owner of dairy stock — the most risky stock of 

 all. He had to claim for 44 cows ; and the amount which he claimed 

 l^cr head Avas 8/. 15s., the cows having originally cost him, on the 

 average, 22/. 10s. He felt perfectly certain that if the office had 

 allowed him to kill his animals before they were attacked, which 

 they would not do, his claim would have been considerably less. 



When a disease like the rinderpest occm-red, you could not expect 

 to get more than 8/. per head from an insurance office ; and the 

 animals might he sold at a higher price than that. If they were sold 

 for 8/. a-head, and you only claimed at the insurance office for half 

 the number, the claim would be under 4/.: it w^ould be 3Z. 15s., or 

 one-fourth of the 15/. office value. In short, the claim would bear 

 only a very small projiortion to the value of the animal. 



It was impossible to enter fully into the question of insm-ance at a 

 meeting like that ; but he felt sure that it would pay if the thing 

 were done on a sufficiently large scale. He had always been opposed 

 to small offices, on the ground that the expenses were too large in 

 proportion to the amount of business done. When there was only a 

 small breadth of country covered, there was great danger of the 

 liabilities being too heavy to be borne; whereas, by taking in the 

 whole country, the healthy parts as well as those aflected contributed, 

 and the premiums in one district made up for the casualties in 

 another. Like Mr. Pell, he should be very sorry to see the Govern- 

 ment arrangements done away with for the present, for the result 

 would then be that if he were to buy a number of animals, and they 

 were ordered to be slaughtered, he could look neither to the Govern- 

 ment nor to an insm-ance office for compensation. No man would be 

 willing to place himself in that position. There were in the United 

 Kingdom 3,286,000 cows, the value of which, at 15/. per head, was 

 50,000,000/., and, notwithstanding Avhat had been said about the reluc- 

 tance of farmers generally to insure, he felt quite sure that the owners 

 of cows would almost all insure. If insurance answered in the case 

 of cows, he Avas quite sure it Avould answer in the case of every other 



