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Ch. XVI Circulating Annuities
especial degree, in those humble, and at the same
time most numerous walks of life, in which it is
of most importance, to prudence, probity, and happiness.(a)
In the existing state of the money-market, the
hoards of the opulent are prolific and accumulating;
the hoards of the poor alone are dead and unproductive.
By the proposed measure, the condition of the poor in this respect would be raised to a level — in the
first instance not much below — and in process of
time (as the price of Stock Annuities rose, and the
rate of interest obtainable by the purchase of them
diminished) altogether upon a par with — the condition
of the rich. —
A result
NOTE.
(a) Frugality, itself a virtue, is an auxiliary to all
the other virtues: to none more than to generosity, to
which by the unthinking, it is one so apt to be regarded it as an
adversary. The sacrifice of the present to the future
is the common basis of all the virtues: — frugality
is among the most difficult and persevering exemplifications
of that sacrifice. Important in all classes,
it is more particularly so in those which most
abound in uncultivated minds. In these, to promote
frugality is to promote sobriety: — to curb
that raging vice which in peaceful times outstrips
all other moral causes of unhappiness put together.
In the prospects opened by frugality, the wife and
children
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Ch. XVI. Moral Advantages.
To the head of moral may be
referred two very distinct results: of which the
measure promises to be prevention! prevention
of improbity, and promotion of frugality: prevention
of improbity, by furnishing (as we shall see) a new means or instrument of
prevention: promotion of frugality, by the offer of
a new species of property, which, by annexing an
unprecedented remuneration to the exercise of that
virtue, operates at once as an incentive and as a
means. —
1. As to prevention of improbity. — The class of
persons in whose instance it may operate to this
effect, consists of Trustees of every description, to whom
it belongs to receive money on account of their
principals: — Executors and Administrators — Guardians, —
Stewards & Receivers — Assignees of Bankrupts —
Prize Agents — Factors, and the like.
To cause Trust-monies, as often as a suitable case
presents itself, to be laid out in the purchase of
Government Annuities, for the benefit of the principals,
is, in the Court of Chancery, matter of long
established practice: a practice which by an Act
of very recent date has received express support
from Parliament. The credit of the proposed new
Government.
