MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS. 301 



they show themselves ready to communicate those ma- 

 terials out of which a misdemeanor, if there he one, 

 might be substantiated. 



The offices for the insurance of fire have not given 

 any account of the proportion of insured houses upon 

 which claims have arisen. Their usual annual charge 

 is, I believe, about one part in a thousand of the sum 

 insured, upon premises of ordinary risk, such as a 

 dwelling-house in London. There are higher rates 

 for more hazardous insurances, constructed, I should 

 imagine, very much from mere estimation of the risk. 

 But the government steps in between the insurer and the 

 insured, and imposes a duty on each policy which 

 nearly trebles the annual payment upon it. This has 

 been called a tax upon prudence, and in like manner 

 the stamp duty might be called a tax upon justice. I 

 am afraid that if nothing commendable suffered under 

 an impost, reformation would thrive more than re- 

 venue ; and a deficiency of means to pay the interest 

 of the debt would be a heavier tax on prudence, justice, 

 and every thing else, than any minister has yet con- 

 templated. But it may not therefore follow that the 

 particular tax in question is politic, still less that its 

 amount is justifiable. The reason of the tax is plainly 

 this : the moral security offered by the fire office is 

 worth so much more than competition will allow them 

 to ask, that the impost is one which does not fall so 

 heavily as it would do if levied in many other quarters. 

 Nobody can question the truth of this ; but, never- 

 theless, the amount of the tax imposed by the legis- 

 lature must be owned to be excessive, and likely to act 

 as a prohibition in the case of poor persons occupying 

 small premises. 



But there is a mode of overthrowing this tax, or, at 

 least, of bringing the government to terms, to which I 

 can see no impediment, practical or moral. It is the 

 application of the principle of mutual insurance by a 

 number of individuals acting in a private capacity, and 

 not opening a public office. Suppose a thousand indi- 



