ORGANISATION. 191 



so as to ensure a profit to the shareholder, for which the 

 insurer is made to pay a heavy tax. There is no wrong in 

 this. For, since capitaHsts take the risk, it is only fair 

 that they should receive a recompense for such service. 

 Only it makes insurance costly. As much as 30 and 50 

 per cent, of the premium income is often enough swallowed 

 up to provide administration expenses and dividend. 

 This is not only wasteful, but it is quite unnecessary — because 

 the principles and practice of provident insurance are now 

 so generally understood that there is no difficulty in insurers 

 organising the service for themselves. They stand to save 

 very much in money. Even the German Social Insurance 

 Corporations, which stand under Government, lose no more 

 on their business expenses than about 10 per cent. And 

 our Co-operative Insurance Society, now amalgamated 

 with the Co-operative Wholesale Society, has ingeniously 

 devised a scheme of collective life insurance which whittles 

 down the loss to only 5 per cent. Quite apart from the 

 point of economy, specifically in the application of Insurance 

 to Agriculture, there are services to be rendered which, by 

 reason of the smallness of the operations in each separate 

 instance, appear unsuited to management by large commer- 

 cial bodies, and for which, on the other hand. Co-operation 

 appears to afford the proper method, by reason of the 

 immediate oversight by expert neighbours directly inter- 

 ested in the matter, which Co-operation not only permits 

 but actually necessitates, and which acts as an effective 

 safeguard against fraud on the one hand, or any kind of 

 overreaching, and as a very substantial assistance to cheap- 

 ness. Take, as an instance, the insurance of small cottagers' 

 cows or pigs. The insurance of a single pig is a small object 

 indeed for a capitalist insurance body to handle. And 

 in case of a casualty it is difficult for such a corporation 

 to establish the precise facts b}^ inquiry at a moment's 

 notice — which, however, is very essential. A co-operative 

 society, on the other hand, can do so easily through its 

 appointed officers without cost. Accordingly it is not 

 surprising that insurance has been early marked out among 

 agriculturists for co-operative management. Such co- 



