The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-11-04 00:00:00

SURRENDER OF BONUS FOR VALUE IN CASH

According to this method, if the person assured does not
wish the sum in his policy increased, he may surrender the
Bonus, and take its value in cash; that is, instead of the
amount being paid with the sum assured at death, such a sum
will now be given as the Directors may consider equivalent to
it in present value.
Example.—ln the case of the policy of .elBOO opened be-
fore 15th November 1825, for instance, as quoted above,
assuming the party to have assured at the age of 35, and
to be now 60 last birth-day, the sum of £463 7s. 9d.
would be given for a surrender of the Bonus of .e 873,
while the policy will continue to receive its share of
profits, at future investigations, as if the surrender had
not taken place.
APPLICATION OF THE BONUS TO THE EXTINCTION

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TUESDAY MORNING, NOV. 4, 1851

THE NEW FRENCH CABINET

FRANCE has continued for another week an inex-
plicable political problem. She is ruled somehow,
and pretty stringently too, but nobody knows who
are the rulers. The governmental position has
been shifted, but the situation of the Government
is the same. Ministers, or rather the names of
ministers, have been gazetted as appointed to the
vacant offices of state, but there exists in reality
no tangible ministry. Louis Napoleon, forced by
the rising discontent of the people of Paris at the
prolongation of the crisis to do something, has
promulgated a list of names, which everybody
knows is only a pro forma" one—a cabinet upon
paper, merely intended to meet the exigency of the
moment. The gentlemen thus charged with the
several portfolios are all respectable in general
character, but quite unknown to fame as public
functionaries. Three only out of the nine are
members of the National Assembly. That, to be
sure, does not make much difference in France,
for by the present constitution a Parliamentary
cabinet is not absolutely necessary. In fact, the
President can, and has, maintained his ministry in
direct hostility to the National Assembly, thus
giving the country the advantage of a Government
by two antagonistic powers. Several of the mem-
bers of the new cabinet were strangers to each
other until they were unexpectedly brought face to
face as colleagues in the ministry, and two or three
of them were personally unknown to the President
of the Republic, until they stood before him to
receive their seals of office. What is passing
strange in the composition of the cabinet is, that
the chief, M. de Thoringy, was neither a friend of
Louis Napoleon, nor even a Buonapartist, before
he was desired to construct a ministry; on the
contrary, his political opinions were of the Legiti-
mist cast. He did not even know the President
by sight, until he was summoned to St. Cloud.
Moreover, the three members of the cabinet who
have seats in the National Assembly, voted in
favour of the Electoral law of May, the repeal of
which is the first object of Louis Napoleon. Im-
probable as it may be, it is said that notwithstand-
ing these votes all the members of the new cabinet
were d'accord. It would be vain to expect such a
make-shift to stand any time. Some, however,
think that it may be made to serve the President's
purpose until the Electoral law shall be disposed of.
Yesterday (Monday) the National Assembly met
after its long vacation, and the President's message
was, of course, communicated to it. Until we
know for certain the substance of that message,
and the line of policy it will chalk out, it would be
a waste of time to speculate on what may be the
future position of the Government of France, or of
the nation itself. The rumour most accredited in
Paris was, that the message will require a repeal of
the law of May, but that just and reasonable
restrictions upon universal suffrage will be declared
compatible with such repeal. The number of
representatives in Paris, when our last accounts left,
was unusually large, and the excitement in the
capital was extreme.

THE COMMERCIAL BUSINESS OF THE

NEXT SESSION.

WHIG Statesmen have ever considered that it was
a fine piece of political jockeyship to lead their
opponents astray upon a false scent, and that to
scramble over a session without doing anything
conclusive or well-adjusted, by means of adroit
expedients and small compromises, was an admi-
rable parliamentary feat. There is every reason to
suppose that the present Ministry intend to put in
practice these, their favourite tactics, in the
ensuing session. They hope, by throwing down a
sham Reform Bill as soon as the House of Com-
mons meets, to engage members in endless
discussions on it, and to occupy the undivided
attention of parties; and they flatter themselves
that, while independent representatives will be
thus busied, they may be allowed to get on by
passing a few temporary make-shifts, or by leaving
difficult and dangerous subjects of legislation
precisely as they are. But we trust they will be
foiled this time in these, their habitual manoeuvres,
and that the Conservative party will insist that the
really important work of the session be not
postponed or evaded. Several measures of vital
interest to the commercial and general community
now press for decision—measures infinitely more
urgent than this obtruded parliamentary reform,
which nobody believes necessary, and which few
ask for, and even then in a tone of indifference.
The first great question that will have to be
settled will be the continuance, or non-continuance,
of the Income Tax. A conclusion upon that point
must be arrived at without a moment's unavoidable
delay, for on it hinges the whole financial arrange-
ments of the country. Then there is the question
of a reform of the Customs departments, which
the mercantile classes are urging with a voice that

cannot be neglected, supported as it is by justice,
and the crying evils and oppressions of the existing
system which late investigations have exposed to
light. Another subject that the legislature will
have to deliberate upon is the Law of Partnership,
upon which a committee sat last session, and took
a mass of instructive evidence. This law is a
perpetual pitfall to the unwary, and an impedi-
ment to fair and honest commercial adventure.
By the Partnership Law, as it now exists, the
capitalist may lend his money at any extravagant
rate of interest he can obtain by means of well-
known ingenious contrivances, and secure to him-
self the repayment of his advances in preference to
the general creditors ; but should he lend any por-
tion of this money in the most legitimate and de-
sirable way—that is, on the condition of sharing in
the profit and loss of the concern—in such case the
lender will become a partner, and will be held
liable for the debts of the concern to his last shil-
ling and his last acre. The effect is similar with
respect to joint-stock associations, and prudent
capitalists are thereby deterred by a fear of conse-
quences from embarking in the most promising
and unimpeachable undertakings. Excluded from
the natural channels of fair commercial investment,
men are driven to place their money in the fund.