The Rev. W. Moore Ede, Rector of Gateshead, read a
paper on " Insurance " on Tuesday, before the British Association, which contains some facts of interest. He declared that an annuity of 5s. a week, payable from sixty-five years of age, can be purchased by the payment from the age of twenty-one of 3d. a week, or by the payment down of 26 10s. If those figures are right, they are important, because they involve these satisfactory results,—A payment of 213 down at twenty- one will secure any family from starvation at sixty-five, with- out entrance into a workhouse. Thirteen pounds is as much beyond a labourer's reach as £13,000; but suppose the State lends it, and receives from him 5 per cent., or 13s. a year, or
3d. a week, payable through the employer. That would just pay the interest at 3 per cent., and extinguish the debt, the advantage being that while a subscription might not be recoverable, a debt would be. Our people are hardly civilised enough yet for the system, deferred annuities being beyond the range of the imaginations even of railway servants, as was shown in a recent case ; but it is a great thing to know that the figures are not impossibly big, and that a good pension for old age—viz., a pound a week from sixty-five—could be purchased for sixpence a week from twenty. In fact, a shilling a week paid through the working life, would buy everything,—sick fund, involuntary idleness fund, and pension.
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