mittee were selected both in and out of the House)? The name of Matthew, afterwards Sir Matthew Hale, occupies that station. He was, I need not add, the greatest lawyer of his day. That committee proposed various remedies: amongst others, the establishment of a small debt court-of a county court-of a court for fraudulent debtors-the formation of a general registry; and they likewise recommended that defendants in criminal actions should be allowed to examine witnesses on oath in their defence. Such was not the law at that period. It was reserved for the times of Queen Anne to see this judicious recommendation of the committee of the Cromwellian Parliament carried into effect. After the Re storation, a committee was appointed to examine the laws, and to propose such remedies as they considered necessary. There were fifty-one lawyers on that committee. Three or four bills were introduced by them, and passed through several stages in this House for the general amendment of the law.

I now wish you to institute a similar inquiry. I call on you to enter speedily and rigorously into an examination of the present state of the law, with a view to its general amendment. In such a project I expect to receive support from Government. What, it may be asked, are my hopes? I do not expect figs from thorns, nor roses from thistles. But why should not the fig-tree bear fruit, and why should not the rose put forth its perfume? I am no prophet, certainly; but there are members of the present Government whose liberal opinions promise me assistance, and some of whom have given very recent expression to those opinions. There are other members of the Government with whom, I lament to say, I differ widely on a great and important question. The gentleman, however, to whom I more particularly allude, satisfactorily agrees with me on the leading points of the momentous question which I have brought under your notice this night. Is it too much, then, to expect the support of the present administration? At all events, I repose with confidence on the support of this House. You have a great and glorious race to run; your name will go down to posterity as that of the most useful and important Parliament that ever met. The far-famed conqueror of his time, the victor of Italy and Germany, counted all his triumphs pitiful and not worthy of being mentioned; while his name, he said, would descend to future ages in company with that code which he had established. Try to rival him-not in the desolating paths of war, but in the sacred arts of peace. The flatterers of the Edwards and the Henries compared them to Justinian,—a far higher praise could be with truth bestowed on that Parliament, and that King, under whose sanction, by whose assistance, counsel, and advice, a thorough and wholesome amendment should be VOL. XXIX. NO. LVII. P

Pam.

effected in the laws of this realm. If a crown, to my simple view, possess any lustre, it is because it enables those who wear it to promote the welfare of mankind. Augustus boasted that he found Rome brick, and that he left it marble. A greater boast may yet be made by your King-that he found the law dear, and that he left it cheap; that he found it a sealed book, and that he left it a volume open to all; that he found it the patrimony of the rich, and that he left it the inheritance of the poor; that he found it a sword in the hands of oppression and craft, and that he left it the staff of honesty and the shield of the innocent. To me, much reflecting on these things, there is no higher glory to which my ambition could aspire ;-there is no honor which, as a man and a lawyer, I would more greedily covet, than to be the humble instrument of directing your labors to this all-important object. For office, or patronage, or emolument, I care not: I am content with what the labor of my hands supplies me. To me power has no charms: I shall on all occasions fearlessly, and I trust faithfully, support my fellow-countrymen when claiming their just rights; and there is nothing I know of their lawful grievances which I shall not lay before this House and the world. The power to advocate the rights of my fellow-countrymen within these walls, as well as out of these walls,-that is the power which I desire to possess and exercise. It is a power which is given to no changes of the Government, and which cannot be taken away by any Ministry.

Sir, I move, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he will be graciously pleased to issue a commission for inquiring into the abuses which have been introduced in the course of time into the administration of the laws of these realms, and to report on what remedies it may seem fit and expedient to adopt for their removal."

On the 29th of February, the following Resolution, substituted by Mr. Brougham, with the assent of Ministers, was carried unanimously:

"That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, respectfully requesting that his Majesty may be pleased to take such measures as may seem most expedient for the purpose of causing due inquiry to be made into the origin, progress, and termination of actions in the superior courts of common law in this country, and matters connected therewith; and into the state of the law regarding the transfer of real property."

TO

THE EARL OF ELDON,

ON

THE REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.

BY GEORGE FARREN, Esg.

RESIDENT DIRECTOR OF THE ASYLUM LIFE OFFICE.

LONDON:-1828.

MY LORD,

HAVING been permitted the honor of dedicating to your Lordship my works "On Life Insurance" and "On the Laws of Climate and Disease," I cannot refrain from calling attention to the speedy confirmation of the truth of the hypothesis therein advanced, and of the correctness of your Lordship's opinions which I have had the honor to record. This confirmation is rendered by the report of the Finance Committee, which calls the attention of the House to the expediency of repealing the act by which the commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt are empowered to grant Life Annuities.

The necessity for correct estimates of the value of human life appears to have been fully appreciated by your Lordship; a conviction arising, no doubt, from your knowlege that few estates in this country are held intirely free from charge, in respect of some life contingency.

Your Lordship is so profound a lawyer, that it is only necessary for me to call your recollection to the fact, that the first estimates of the probabilities of human life were made by Ulpian in the third century, to provide for the execution of the Roman law, called Lex Falcidia.

In this country, although many loans for the service of Government were raised on Life Annuities soon after the Revolution, it was not until 1693 that any scientific approximations of the values of life contingencies were made; indeed, until 1762, so little was known of the business of Life Insurance, that the two chartered companies charged in every case the same rate of premium, whatever the age of the parties might be.-In 1783, Dr. Price published a fourth edition of his work on reversionary payments, with tables of annuities on lives, deduced from the probabilities of life at Northampton, and as observed in the kingdom of Sweden.

An excellent mathematician of the present day, in writing of this work, says, "Dr. Price's object was not so much to insert what was new, as to illustrate, by some striking examples, a few of the leading problems, with a view to oppose the pernicious schemes that disgraced the age in which he lived. But those schemes having long since vanished, his observations may now be considered rather as a beacon to posterity." The imperfections of the Northampton tables have been fully shown in the last edition of Dr. Price's work, (vol. i. p. 183.) published by Mr. Morgan; in which, on a comparison of the mortality exhibited by the Northampton table with the actual mortality among the members of the Equitable Life Office, during a period of forty-two years, on a general average of deaths, only two out of every three presented by that table appear to have taken place, and at the early periods of life, only one out of two.

In 1808, the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt were empowered to grant Life Annuities, and these rates were founded on the expectations of life exhibited by the Northampton tables.

In 1828, the Finance Committee report, that "having in the course of their inquiries discovered that the conditions under which the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund are required by the Act for enabling the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt to grant Life Annuities are extremely disadvantageous to the public, they feel it to be their duty to call the immediate attention of the House to the expediency of repealing that Act."

Thus it appears that by the Northampton tables great loss has been sustained by the public, on sale of Life Annuities, and most exorbitant profits have been obtained by the Insurance Offices on purchase of Life Annuities; I say purchase, because every life premium paid on an insurance is an annuity to the office of the amount of that premium during the existence of the party on whose life the insurance is granted, in consideration of the supposed value to be paid at his death. That the loss by sale of annuities has fallen on the public at large, is a fortunate circumstance for the individuals who purchased; as your Lordship has deeply lamented your inability to afford relief to those who had trusted for payment of such annuities to less stable security than the Go

vernment revenues.

In proportion to the good fortune of many who purchased annuities from the Government on faith of the Northampton table, has been the improvidence of those who brought life insurances from public offices which adopted the same estimates of mortality; estimates which, if the annuities sold had been equal in extent to the annuities received, must, by involving the offices in inevitable

ruin, have produced the disastrous consequences which your Lordship has so feelingly deplored in the cases to which I shall presently refer. It is manifest from Mr. Morgan's own statement, in his edition of Dr. Price's work, that if at a particular age only one death took place where two deaths were represented by the table of mortality, from which the premiums were deduced, the parties insuring at that age would have paid double the price which the true risk required. Now, although this shameful excess may not be sufficiently apparent, when the premium is paid annually, it becomes perfectly obvious, if we suppose the insurance to be paid for by one sum, instead of by an annual premium. Mr. Bailey, in his excellent work, exposes this imposition in its true light:

"A person aged 20 is desirous of assuring his own life for 5000l. The sum demanded for this purpose, by all the assurance companies, (in 1813) is 21401. 2s. But the true value of such sum, as deduced from the Sweden observations, is no more than 14227. 10s. if we take the rate of interest at 4 per cent; and no more than 1128/. 10s. if we take the rate of interest at 5 per cent: or, when deduced from the observations of M. De Parcieux, it is no more than 13581. 2s. taking interest at 4 per cent; and no more than 10787. 16s. taking interest at 5 per cent. A person, therefore, of this age, who insures the above sum at any of those offices which make no return of any part of the premium, may be considered as throwing away between 7007. and 1.0007."

In computing the value of 5000l., payable at the death of a man aged 20, by a table deduced from the most correct modern observations, and agreeing most accurately in result with the actual mortality among the members of the Equitable Society during a period of forty-two years, it is found to be only 12761. 7s. taking interest at 4 per cent; and only 995. 19s. taking inte rest at 5 per cent: being in the former case little more than half, and in the latter case considerably less than half the price charged by the antiquated assurance companies.

Such is the difference, in a single instance, between the values of life interests calculated according to the Northampton table of mortality, and those deduced from correct modern observations. And hence it may be inferred how prejudicial a reliance on calculations founded on the Northampton table must be, in cases in which the value of property depending on life contingencies is involved. But, my Lord, there is another branch of this inquiry which extends to persons who have always excited the warmest sympathy, and have always received the most generous protection from the government of the country-I mean the members of benefit societies: select committees of the House of Commons have fre