On this page
-
Text (4)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
announced that , in eleven months from its comm encement , 101 policies had been effected , giving an annual income of £ 1015 . The " Trafalgar in seven months issues 216 policies , affording an annual income of £ 2200 . In eleven months , on the average of what it has already done , the " Trafalgar " will have effected three hundred and twelve policies . Yet at the second annual meeting of the in 1849 dividend of 5 cent
f * Professional , " , a per , was declared upon the paid up capital ; aud it was announced , that the whole of the preliminary and other liabilites had been discharged , leaving the Association only its current expenses to provide for . At the last Annual meeting it was stated that 1155 policies had been issued , and that the premium fund , after deducting all assurances lapsed by death , amounted to upwards of £ 11 , 450 .
When , therefore , we see the extension of principles which it took three years to establish , now adopted in seven months , must we not regard it as an evidence that the advantages of Association for mutual benefit are becoming appreciated , and that Life Assurance is beginning to be understood ? What agents might these 900 shareholders be , ¦ cattered as they are throughout the country ! What hlessings might they confer upon their fellows in their own circles , while they secure the high
prosperity of their associations ! So easy is success when worked out by combined operation ! Even one policy per annum for £ 100 from each of these 900 shareholders , would secure a sufficient fund for all the administrative expenses of the office . And who is there among them that has not within the sphere of his influence the power of securing one policy per annum ? A man could scarcely employ himself more philanthropically than by constituting himself a missionary of assurance among his friends or those over whom he has any influence .
The poor man now knows that if he put by a shilling a week for twenty years he would get but £ 52 ; while a shilling a week , invested from the age of twenty in a policy of assurance , would secure £ 100 to his survivors . Or , otherwise invested , he may receive , on attaining the age of sixty-five , an annuity of £ 47 16 s . 6 d ., or a cash payment of £ 394 11 s . Even under this latter table , two-thirds of the payments may at any time ba withdrawn on deposit of the policy : and should the party not survive to the specified age , two-thirds of his payments will be returned to his representatives .
The figures are taken from the tables of the Trafalgar Office ; but although they may be peculiar to that association , we have now a right to say that the working-man has the full benefit of assurance placed within his reach . It is evident that every extension of the principle adds to its safety . ; and the success of the "Trafalgar" will encourage the development of a liberal and enlightened
system of assurance . 1 he success should also be a subject for satisfaction among all those assurance offices which have adopted the popular principle of Concert . The interest of one is the interest of all ; the experiment of each is the experience of all . The field open to each is a field open to all ; and even the advocates of Concert will not grudge the first fruits to those who have had the faith and courage first to try the field .
Untitled Article
M . CIIAKLES HUGO AND FREEDOM OF THE PRESS . The letters of M . Victor Hugo and his son , M . Charles Hugo , in acknowledgment of the expression of sympathy from our side , are full of si gnilicance to those who watch the many-troubled currents of this stream of Time which is hurrying our century to unknown issues . They denote more than one new and striking fact . They are the reply of the persecuted Press of a country which has not deemed three revolutions too great « i ( sacrifice in the cause of liberties so often won from tyranny , and so often wrested back by treachery , to the free voice of respectful nyinputhy from a Press which claims to represent the great ¦ Eng lish People in their hatred of injustice , illegality , and oppression , und in their onward inarch t <> ; i brotherhood of nations , bound by a common »*> l > o and sympathy . The ( jJoveinmcnts of France and England have been often in hostility ; the Peoples , had their l ><> litieal education been more complete , would nave known that it wan the policy of the Kings to divide , but of the Peoples to unite their foraes ag'unut u common foe . B .-i ^ f . laBt evolution , or rather the reaction that "" led it , has taught the necessity of a closer union
in the presence of the throned conspiracies of despotism . On sweeping away dynastic intrigues in 1848 , France and England made friends . From the first days of ¦ the revolution France counted upon English support . We are still too exclusive in our love of liberty . We almost grudge to " foreign Peoples the conquest of rights such as our own forefathers bled and died to wrench from usurpation , such as generations of our ancestors have not , without many a struggle and many a reverse , bequeathed for an inheritance to us , enlarged and adorned by many a renewed victory .
We glorify our own stability , forgetting the pains and perils of the dead , and unmindful of our present manifold social miseries to be punished or redeemed . Within our borders , indeed , we are not slow to perceive the duty of rectproca ^ defenceagainst all inroads upon the freedom of the individual ; but we have not yet thoroughly learned how the liberties of nations demand a common and reciprocal protection . We rejoice that this occasion has been seized to declare a new and awakened feeling , and a more generous and enlarged spirit . We , of the Leader , are glad to hail our brethren of the French Press as true colleagues and cooperators
in the great work of social reparation . We are working out , in the same spirit , the same problems of religious and political philosophy , we do not say with equal power , but with fraternal sincerity . We admire ^ Press of France , which , in the midst of otfwacles so vexatious , indefatigably and fearlessly strikes deeper the furrows of the new science : ever fertile in conception , bold in initiation , varied and ample in resources , brilliant and skilful in polemical discussion , under a Government which suborns its own journals to preach violence and illegality , and punishes with fine and imprisonment any independent voice raised in behalf of humanity , and in abhorrence of the scaffold .
Here we find a young man of rare promise—not twenty-one years of age—who already wields his pen with strength enough to make the guillotine totter ; and for expressing his abhorrence of the institution , after an execution more than usually brutal in its incidents , he is cast into prison for six months . Imagine Charles Dickens indicted for an article against Capital Punishment . The
condemned article of M . Charles Hugo is as remarkable in its dignified moderation , and in its respect for Law , as it is striking and able in composition , and picturesque in language . But in punishing the son , those models of political probity , MM . Baroche and Le ' on Faueher , struck at the father , under whose indignant oratory they had so often quailed . Victor Hugo was the intended victim .
May this expression of sympathy be not only a consolation to the father and the son , but a true earnest of " the communion of two great Peoples in an idea of humanity " ! M . Charles Hugo has the modesty and the good taste to forget the person in the principle . But what a condition of government his words , " the expiring liberty of the French Press , " reveals ! We bid him take courage . Reaction is for a moment , but liberty is as eternal as Justice . France will not return to the good old times of 1751 .
Untitled Article
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE DEBT . A French political oeconomist of last century remarks that the only solid proof which England can give of her strength is the extinction of her public debt ; and *> uch , he adds , is the patriotic zeal of Englishmen , that he would not be surprised to see them exhibit the singular spectacle in the eyes of astonished Europe of discharging tho whole of the national debt by voluntary subscription . This was before the American war ; at a time when the debt was only about £ 150 , 000 , 000 . Mnco that period £ 700 , 000 , 000 has been added to our incuinbrances by George III . and by that
" Heaven-born Miniater" who plunged uh into a European war to nave uh from " the dangerous infection of French principles "; to aay nothing of additions of those austere oeconomistts , the WhigH . But if the debt has been more than quadrupled since the time of this eulogistic prophecy , the national ability to pay nan also greatly increased , although not quite in the same proportion . According to the best authorities the real property of GreaJ Britain is now worth about £ 2 , 000 , 000 , 000 more than 1 t WaS i ? 5 ° « ffinnin ffof the American war ; so that , while the nation has incurred £ 700 , 000 , 000 of debt , the savi ng * and increased value of
land from progress of population and other causes amount to nearly three times that sum . If the owners of that property were all as public spirited as Sir Francis Blake , a Northumberland landowner of the last century , who proposed that every man should take his proportion of the debt , he offering at once to contribute his own very considerable share of it , —we might soon get rid of the incubus . But such patriotism is rare in these days . Before men of property can be induced to contribute a fair share of what they possess to avert . " national bankruptcy , or national deterioration which must rapidly lead to that result , a little pressure must be employed , and for that purpose we must have a strong Government .
Rather more than twenty years ago , when the Whigs were not quite so timid as they have latterly become , their Quarterly organ recommended an assessment of 12 per cent , on the capital of the kingdom , in order to cancel one half of the National Debt . If that estimate was correct in 1827 , we may fairly conclude that less than 10 per cent , would suffice for the same purpose in 1851 , considering the great increase of capital during the last twenty-four years . In his Progress of the Nation , Mr . Porter estimates the whole of
the real property assessed to the property and Income Tax , assuming it to be worth twentyfive years' purchase , at £ 2 , 382 , 000 , 000 . As this does not include properties of less yearly value than £ 150 per annum , we may add one third more for them , which will make the total value about £ 3 , 200 , 000 , 000 . An assessment of ten per cent , upon the whole of that property , and also upon the whole of the money invested in the public funds , to be paid in ten yearly instalments , would enable us to eancel more than one half of the National
Debt before 1861 . Such an assessment will be deemed monstrous by men of property at the present day , and yet it is a much less rate than their ancestors were obliged to pay in the last century . Under Queen Anne the land tax of 4 s . in the pound produced nearly as much as the whole amount derived from taxes on consumption at the same period . In 1851 , the taxes on consumption are ten times heavier than the taxes on land .
And now let us see what advantages the nation would derive from this arrangement . A reduction of the National Debt would reduce our expenditure by some £ 15 , 000 , 000 a year , leaving , of course , an equivalent sum in the hands o [ the Chancellor of the Exchequer . With such a surplus at his command , he would find no difficulty in abolishing and reducing" taxes to a far larger amount than that . He might commence , for example , with a reduction of the present enormous duty on ten , lowering it the first year to Is . Od ., the second to Is ., and finally to 6 d . per lb ., at which rate it might be allowed to remain for some time . The effect of this
on our trade with China would be worth a property tax of 6 d . in the pound for that purpose alone . And yet the cost of this great boon to the commercial and manufacturing interests would probably not exceed one-fifth part of the saving which would be effected by cancelling one-half of the National Debt . With the remaining surplus as it gradually accumulated , the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to make an annual reduction of taxes to the extent of nearly £ 2 , 000 , 000 a year , and thus give relief to trade , reduce the cost of living , and by promoting the demand for labour , render the condition of the working-classes so much more tolerable than it ia at present , as to make them feel themselves nearly as comfortable here as they could be in any other part of the globe .
Untitled Article
ltA . li . WAY COMPETITION . Last week wo heard Mr . ( Jlyn , of the North-Western , denouncing railway competition as foolish and ruinous ; thin week Mr . Evelyn Dcuison wings a Nimilar eong . But the peculiar characteristic of the business is , that neither company is able to avoid competition . They are hurried into it , they continue in it , they carry it to great length ** , they deplore it , and they cannot help it . EdortH have been made , and negotiations entered into between the rival companies , to divide the territory , and charge the higheflt fares consistent with the highest dividends ; but in vain .
Now , this appears to us a poor result , tt linn been proved that low fares arc the most productive fares . Directors will never charge very high fares again . It in against their interest . It is clear that concert between those companies would bring about a « Uto of things equally beneficial to the public and « harehold « rs . Com petition is , and always will be waste ; th « more exoeuiv ¦» tho more apparent . Concert alone will bring about pure gain to nil .
Untitled Article
Aug . 30 , 1851 . ] &tH ILeanet . 823
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 30, 1851, page 823, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1898/page/11/
-