STATE HYGIENE 637 



to be carried out by the State or by local authorities is a 

 question we do not feel competent to enter into. It is quite 

 clear that every stock-owner should, if possible, be com- 

 pelled to insure all his animals, with such assistance out of 

 local or Imperial funds as may be necessary to encourage 

 thrift, or to give the scheme a start. Such a system of 

 insurance carried to its logical conclusion, as in Germany 

 and Glasgow, provides that a stock-owner or butcher can 

 also insure animals about to be converted into food, for 

 possible rejection as unfit for consumption. 



Times may be bad and profits small, the same cry 

 judging from history, forms part of the creed of the agri- 

 cultural community, but an extensive system of insurance 

 would, if general, cost but little. Private companies at the 

 present time, with only a small fraction of the public in- 

 suring, can accept a cow, including parturition risk, valued 

 at £20, for £1 3s. per annum, and a farm or carriage horse 

 of the same value for sixteen shillings a year. 



It must not be supposed that we have proposed anything 

 novel; animal insurance exists in Germany as a State- 

 aided institution. Certain States have liberally subscribed 

 to the funds, and left it permissive for the farmer to join. 

 Experience, however, shows that this is wrong, and that if 

 this Institution is to flourish it must be obligatory for all 

 to join for the general good, in order to avoid a drain on the 

 resources of the State. 



Nor are we ignorant of successful efforts to establish a 

 mutual system of Insurance in this country. For many 

 years past such a system has existed in Scotland. The 

 Ehinns of Galloway Insurance Co., Ltd., was organized in 

 1872 to insure the farmers of that district against loss from 

 cattle plague and pleuro-pneumonia.* The rate payable 

 was one shilling per head per annum for every animal 

 insured ; landlords subscribed at the rate of two shillings 

 for every hundred pounds of rental, until an accumulated 

 sum of £5,000 was obtained. It was decided by the 



* > Cattle Insurance in the Khinns of Galloway,' Mr. H. Ealston, 

 Transactions of the Highland and AgriculturaL Society, 1890. 



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