296 



ESSAY ON PROBABILITIES, 



must prevail before a thorough knowledge of the ad- 

 vantages they offer can get abroad, can be attained while 

 their several administrations are unconnected, and at 

 liberty to pursue all possible variety of plans, subject 

 only to the certificate of an actuary that each propo- 

 sition is not unsafe. But something more than safety is 

 required : an equitable distribution of benefits, and a 

 certainty of the most careful management, are as neces- 

 sary to the universal formation of these societies as an 

 opinion of their safety. The government, which 

 has within these few years been compelled, by the 

 most decided necessity, to apply a very severe and 

 searching remedy to an abuse of long standing, owes 

 the labouring classes a strong expression of sympathy 

 with the numerous cases of hardship which such a mea- 

 sure must create, and with the excellent conduct and 

 temper under its operation which has pervaded the 

 classes most immediately affected by it. It is to be re- 

 gretted that the change itself was not accompanied by 

 acts of parliament for the encouragement and aid of 

 societies such as those of which I am now speaking, in 

 addition to those which already existed for their regu- 

 lation. The most determined opponent of the protect- 

 ive principle would hardly dispute the policy of giving 

 effective help to the efforts of self-support, at the mo- 

 ment when the aid of the parish, which had been the 

 resource against poverty, became only the last security 

 against starvation. If the nation had been obliged to 

 abandon a distant colony, in circumstances of danger 

 and distress, there is no doubt that the settlers would 

 have been furnished with arms, arsenals, ships, money, 

 and all that could enable them to do whatever might be 

 done for their own defence and support. Has similar 

 help in similar circumstances been given at home ? Is 

 the labouring man, thus suddenly thrown into a position 

 where the power and the habit of depending on himself 

 are necessary to a degree of which his training never 

 implied the existence, one bit nearer to the acquisition 

 of the power or the formation of the habit, by any aid 



