The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1873-01-11
Hard Up-straightened Expedients.

Hard Up-Straightened Expedlente'
The scheme now sleeping In the Legisla-
ture for the monopoly by the State OF All IN
surance business Is very like the desperate
shifts of "played out F" merchants. The rcau''
will readily remember more than one SUCH
Having failed once, or several times aae .'.'
tied at from ten up to fifty cents IN Tue aos-
lar, this individual moves about US eScteu's
ms q pea on a hot shovel spreading nelore
business men his shrewd schemes for n
raise. He talks of hundreds Of thou.
sands with "nary red" in bis pocket, and
s,,caks of credit by the million when he
can't ego on tick" for drink. So our
State, protesting to be strapped-unable TO
pay anything-proposes to 60 into grand
monopoly! This is very good-very enter
prising. If the magnitude of an enterprise is
to lie considered in an inverse ratio to the
means for its accomplishment, this grand
monopoly of the insurance business by the
State is one of the greatest that has been
proposed in long time.
In truth there could be nothing more I'M
practical and visionary than the idea of en-
barking the State into the insurance business.
She could not manage 1t, and would be the
everlasting victim. There would be reS'l-
lar system of fraud practiced, whereby strait
ened and desperate villains would rob her.
And who protects the State:
The worst feature of the proposed mea-
sure is that which would prohibit the
citizen from insuring with any company,
and compelling all who insure to insure with
the State. A State which declines to pay its
own debts could hardly be trusted, and her
citizens would be little inclined 10 take her
guarantee with the fact of her painful de.
linquency before them, and furthermore in
view of the additional grounds Of objection
that the State would be the victim of innu-
merabe frauds. To compel man to insure
with the State would be monslrous in any
view; but with these facts it would be worse
than monstrous.
The State is always well employed in resu-
lating public matters and preserving peace
and security. That is more than most Co
vcrnments do; but the people are happy
when that is done. 1t ii sure. h"w@r"F, to
botch its work and infict serious evil Wien
ever it undertakes to interfere with private
avocations. If it goes into the insurance
business it may go into the shipping trade
and into the business Of trading, Of buying
and selling, and doing everything that is
now left to private enterprise. II it takes
this step ii should at once convert the State
into communist cstablishment-destroy all
titles to land, and conduct the general bust
ness Of directing all industry, and buying
and selling, and importing and exporting
for the people.
The scheme Of insurance is hit upon as a
means OF paying of the public debt--that
great bugbear with which demagosues arc
Fighting the people Of Virginia. In short,
ga new way TO pay old debts" y; and many
who are sick of the public debt are ready TO
try it, just as chronic sufferers are TO try
every quack remedy they see advertised in
the papers.
Assurcdly there is too much practical
scrse in the Legislature to permit this
utopian scheme to pass.