the National Debt Commissioners on the one
hand, and the  proposer on the other. If nothing
objectionable appears, the insurer is to pay
"ordinary" rates of premium; if the conditions
are not so favourable, he is to pay "extra"
rates. All persons whose health or habits are
unfavourable, and all miners, butchers, publicans,
and seamen, as well as others exposed to
more hazard to life and health than average
persons, will pay extra rates. Poor fellows,
there is no help for it; they must pay high for
their greater liability to early death. Tough
old people who live to ninety or a hundred are
great favourites with the insurance offices as
life insurers, though not as annuitants; weak
and shaky people are welcomed as annuitants,
though not as life insurers; but the only fair
way, if possible, is to apportion, in each case,
the premium to the risk. The contract of
insurance being duly drawn up, the insurer pays
his premium at any of the offices most convenient
to him. He is furnished with a premium
receipt book, and whenever he pays in an instalment
of premium, the office-keeper enters it in
the book, signs it with his name and the date,
and stamps it with his office seal. When the
insurer has paid five years' premiums, he may
surrender his policy, and receive not less than one-
third of the money back again. How much more
he will receive will not be determined just yet;
for, as none of the policies will acquire a surrender
value until the year eighteen hundred and
seventy, the details of surrender need not be
settled for some time to come. The insured
acquires at the same time the right to assign
his policy, or make it over to some one else.

If A. B. is doubtful whether he could pay
regular premiums for a great number of years,
he might effect a small insurance now by paying
in full, and another small insurance whenever
he has the money to spare, each insurance being
a transaction complete in itself, and involving
no further payment. According to the tables
just now issued, he may at the age of twenty-
five insure twenty-five pounds by paying ten
pounds one shilling and eightpence in one sum;
and then if he has ten pounds seventeen shillings
and elevenpence to spare when he is
thirty years old, he may insure another twenty-
five pounds; he would have to pay nothing
further, and his wife or children would receive
fifty pounds when he dies. But if A. B. thinks
that he could conveniently pay a small premium
every year from the age of twenty-five to (say)
that of sixty, he finds that he can effect a life
insurance of fifty pounds for about twenty-
three shillings per annum. If he is willing to
keep on paying as long as he lives, the annual
premium is reduced to twenty shillings and six-
pence.  Let  the working man of twenty-five look
at this, and think; if he will resolutely lay by a
penny a day, he will have more than enough to
secure fifty pounds to his wife and children
immediately on his death. As two shillings is
the smallest sum receivable at one time under
the new system, there is another aspect of the
matter.  A. B., aged twenty-five next birthday,
agrees to pay two shillings a month as long as
he lives; and he secures a little over fifty-two
pounds to those who are near and dear to
him, payable when he is no longer by to work
for or support them. All the premiums have
been carefully calculated by the most
experienced actuaries, and are intended to exactly
cover all the liabilities and working expenses,
but without yielding any profit to the government.
It is not in any sense a plan of taxation;
nor, on the other hand, is it charity; it is
for the good of the insurers, for them to adopt
or reject at their pleasure.

We will now describe briefly the other
part of the scheme, the granting of deferred
annuities. C. D., about the same age as A. B.,
is employed at a trade which will tell upon his
eyesight by-and-by, or one which will require
more bodily strength than he is likely to possess
at the age of sixty. He feels how beneficial it
would be, and how it would free him from
anxious care about his declining years, if he
could look forward to a little in the shape of
annuity or superannuation allowance. He may
perchance have heard of some friendly society in
which such matters are really managed
judiciously and honestly: he may have known
fellow-workmen who have suffered by the
maladministration of other of these societies; or
he may have known and thought little about the
subject until now. He goes to a money order
office, and obtains a form of application. He
has to fill up a list of questions with appropriate
answers, not nearly so numerous and inquisitive
as those relating to life insurance; because, for
obvious reasons, the grantors of an annuity have
no interest in the grantee being a long liver, but
rather the contrary. In fact, he has to say
nothing at all about his health or constitution, his
family or antecedents; his answers are chiefly
needed for identification, to show that C. D. is
really C. D. and no one else, and that the annuity
shall be paid to the proper C.D. only. He has not
to answer many troublesome questions, not to
submit to any medical examination; and therefore
the transaction is altogether more pleasant
than one relating to life insurance. When the
form is filled up, he takes it to the money order
office keeper, who at once transmits it to the
postmaster-general, in a manner exactly
prescribed for the guidance of the officials. If
the postmaster-general is satisfied with the
answers and the certificates forwarded by the
proposer, he issues a policy or contract for
an annuity, to be granted and guaranteed
by the National Debt Commissioners to the
proposer.

C. D. has the choice of any one among many
different kinds of annuity, irrespective of actual
amount. He may purchase, by a single payment
at the outset, an immediate life annuity
of any amount between four pounds and fifty
pounds per annum; to begin to receive it next
year, and to continue to receive it as long as he
lives. He may purchase, by a single payment,
a deferred annuity of any amount between one
pound and fifty pounds per annum, to begin at a