Government Annuities.

Ir certainly cannot be said that the working-classes in England are a provident race. They are decidedly less so than the rich. However well-to-do they may be in their way, it is with difficulty they can be induced to lay-by for a rainy day. They love to indulge at their own cost in eating, drinking, and fine clothes. Many of the lower orders buy delicacies when first in season, and prefer living in squalid discomfort to practising systematic thrift. When they join clubs and provident-societies, it is often more for the sake of jollity and carousing than for the maintenance of their families in case of their falling sick.

It is not so in France. Those who were in Paris in 1859, and saw the crowds of working-men that pressed eagerly to deposit their savings at the several Bureaux, when the Government called for a loan, will never forget the sight. There was nothing remarkably favourable in the conditions offered, and the cause which demanded the supplies was by no means universally popular. Nothing but the wish to husband their resources to the best advantage can account for the alacrity of the people on this occasion. If you see a young unmarried woman in France at the wheel, and ask what she is spinning, she will probably answer, "Je file mon mariage." And what does she mean by spinning her marriage? Simply that she is preparing her trousseau. It will take her some years to complete; for when she marries, she is expected to provide her own linen, house-linen, and half-a-dozen shirts for her husband. It is no wonder, therefore, that the shepherdess in Normandy cards with her own hands the wool from the few sheep that feed freely on the cliff's slope, washes it white as snow, spins it at home, and in her leisure hours knits all her camisoles, shawls, and stockings. Economy is with her a habit and a principle; and you would find it as difficult to dissuade her from acting thus, as to induce an English girl in the same condition of life to imitate her example. Every gentlewoman amongst us knows that the hardest task she has met with in her round of benevolence has been to persuade her young servants, tenants, and school-girls, to eschew finery and learn to be frugal and saving.

It cannot be denied that of late years the interest felt by the rich for the condition of the poor has been greatly on the increase. The East and West Ends have become better acquainted; and if classdistinctions are as pronounced as ever, they at all events occasion less bitterness. It is almost the fashion now in higher circles to patronise the cause of the poor; and though a good deal of sentimentalism may be mixed up with better motives, the results are on the whole beneficial to society. Intelligent earnestness in the main prompts and sustains the activity in question. Reflecting persons are now alive to the fact that the labouring classes want instruction, not merely in religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic, but in still more commonplace matters, in which they are, notwithstanding, utterly at sea-that they need guidance and encouragement, in short, in the commonest arts of life, and in the management of their own affairs. The Post-office Savings-bank has been admirably contrived for this purpose. The plan is wise as a whole, and its details have been well worked out. It is only by degrees that the public will be made sensible of the advantages it offers; for we are, as a people, rather slow in taking-in a new idea or contracting a fresh habit. Those who have hitherto availed themselves of its provisions are delighted with the experiment. It has brought happiness to many a home, and the thrift it has fostered will bear fruit in years to come. A glance at the Report of the Postmaster-General will show how many hundreds in every part of the country have profited by it. The money hitherto invested has come from persons who, before the time of this national institution, were not in the habit of investing money. To them, therefore, it is pure gain. The aggregate sum is made up of small amounts, some of which proceed from the poorest districts. It is also encouraging to observe that, while so large a sum has been deposited in the Post-office Bank, the old-established savings-banks have suffered very little diminution of their income. There cannot be a more convincing proof that, unthrifty as the working-classes have hitherto been, there is now a disposition among them to turn over a new leaf, and that it needs only to be encouraged in order to its becoming far more general.

The object of this paper will be to show, in a practical manner, the nature and scope of the Post-office Savings-bank system, and to place such readers as have not yet inquired into the matter in a position to advise and instruct any of their dependents who may wish to be annuitants.

There is a twofold advantage to be reaped from the institution in question. First, it affords means for the purchase of small annuities; and secondly, for assuring payments of money at death, under go

vernment security. Up to the present time, thousands of persons have been deterred from investing their savings by the insecurity of village-societies and county-banks. They choose rather to intrust their little all to an old stocking or a drawer-corner. To join a friendly society with uncertain wages would have been a hazardous speculation, since in that case stated sums must be paid at regular intervals. In the event of non-payment on any occasion, the defaulter would be struck off the list of members, without any advantage from the money he might have paid in for years. In this manner many aged persons, who had been paying-in during the greater part of their lives, lost, through some specially trying season, all claim on the society, and saw the savings of long years of frugality swallowed up at one fell swoop of misfortune. The Royal Liver Society, Liverpool, reported last year 70,000 lapsed policies out of 130,000; and the Friend-in-Need Society reported 18,000. Thus, in one year a great gain accrued to the society, and a melancholy loss to many of its members. Nor was this the only suffering to which members were exposed: after subscribing for years, they often found such societies hopelessly involved. Scarcely one society could be found in which a poor man could safely invest his savings. Much of the improvidence rife among the labouring classes was due to this cause rather than to their own unwillingness to put by. The larger and respectable insurance-companies, of which the middle classes avail themselves, scarcely affected the labouring poor at all. The directors of these admirable institutions would have acted wisely if they had adapted their tables to a working-man's means; but they did not think it expedient; and we have therefore reason to be grateful to Mr. Gladstone for having devised a scheme by which artisans and huxters may safely provide for the future, and escape the degrading prospect of being beholden to charity or the workhouse in sickness and old age. The measure, which is now in full operation, has an immense range, and well be called "the first blow at pauperism." If understood and trusted, it will effect more for the people than the cheap loaf; and will develope in the English character that virtue of thrift in which our poor are so sadly deficient.

may

It appears, from the government tables, that the annuity branch is framed for

1. The purchase of an immediate life-annuity, payable halfyearly, of not less than 47., and not more than 50l. For this a single payment is required.

2. The purchase, by a single payment, of an annuity of not less than 17., or more than 501., and payable half-yearly, on and from the second quarter-day next following the expiration of a term of years,

the condition of the purchase being that no part of the purchasemoney can in any event be returned.

3. The purchase, by an annual payment throughout a term of years, of an annuity of not less than 47., or more than 501., payable half-yearly, without any part of the purchase-money being in any case returnable.

4. The purchase by a half-yearly, quarterly, monthly, fortnightly, or weekly payment, continued through a term of years, of a monthly allowance of not less that 47., and not more than 41. 3s. 4d. to commence on the first day of the month next following the expiration of such term of years, on condition that no part of the purchase-money shall in any event be returned.

5. The purchase by a single payment, or by an annual payment for a term of years, of an annuity of not less than 47., and not more than 501., payable half-yearly, after the expiration of a term of years, the conditions being that if the proprietor dies before the annuity becomes due, the purchase-money will be returned to his representatives; and that if he should, during his life and before the annuity becomes due, desire the purchase-money to be returned to him, it shall be returned.

6. The purchase by a half-yearly, quarterly, monthly, fortnightly, or weekly payment throughout a term of years, of a monthly allowance of not less than 47., and not more than 47. 38. 4d., on condition that if the proprietor should die before the monthly allowance becomes due, it will be paid to his representatives; or if during his life he should desire the purchase-money to be returned to him, he may receive it.

The assurance on lives may be effected

1. By payment of a single premium.

2. By payment of a premium annually, throughout the whole life of the person insured.

3. By payment of a premium half-yearly, quarterly, monthly, fortnightly, or weekly, until the insured person shall have attained the age of sixty years.

After this dry enumeration of cases and conditions, it will be more interesting to inquire to what classes of persons the tables are capable of affording assistance. They are evidently five:

1. Those who, though straitened in their annual income, are fortunately possessed of a little money, which they are desirous of investing on good security, to bring them immediate returns.

2. Those with scanty wages, but some small capital, who are desirous of profitably investing their little hoard against the day of adversity.

3. Those who have no capital except their own strength, but whose wages would enable them to lay-by a trifle every week to assist them as they advance in years, or to maintain them when past the possibility of work.

4. Those who, having their families dependent on them for support, are willing to practise such self-denial as may ward off the utter poverty that would otherwise fall on those they love, if they were to be suddenly removed from them by death.

Lastly, the tables afford facilities to those employers who wish to make some provision for faithful servants. This kind purpose they may now accomplish in an easy and economical manner.

In starting a new project capable of vast extension the Government was naturally anxious to proceed with great caution. The terms it offers cannot be said to be particularly generous, or even low, since the rate of interest reckoned in apportioning the premiums for life-assurance is only 3 per cent, while a charge of 20 per cent is made to cover expense of collecting all payments at short intervals, that is, all made oftener than annually. The scheme therefore presupposes the virtue of thriftiness in a considerable degree, and every advantage it offers must be purchased at its full price. Its solid recommendations consist in the security guaranteed, and the convenient modes of payment.

Let us now see in what way an industrious person may appropriate the benefits held out in Mr. Gladstone's measure. John Hodge, just seventeen years old, has already some notion of settling in life, and would like to leave behind him a hundred pounds when he dies. Well, he pays a single premium of 71. 28. 8d. This sum will secure 201. payable at his death. At the age of twenty John has a little more money in hand, and would like to increase the assurance to 301. Nothing is easier. He pays in 37. 16s. 1d.; and if at the age of twenty-three he pays 21. Os. 9d. more, he raises the assurance to 351. At twenty-five he pays 21. 2s., and the sum in prospect is increased to 401. Thus, year after year, he invests at his convenience some trifling amount, till at last he stands assured for 1007. I do not think his case is a common one, yet it might

occur.

It is by the annuity-tables-particularly those on the deferred principle that the industrial classes are most benefited. They strike a blow at pauperism and poor-rates, which must effect great results in course of time. The deferred-annuity system is almost the only plan by which the class who live by wages can provide with certainty for the time when age will unfit them for daily toil. Its tables are arranged so as to meet every condition in which the upper section of