XXXVI
ECONOMICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. PROGRESSIVE ANNUITY FUND. SOCIETY FOR THE
ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATIONAL INDUSTRY
A plan is in preparation for the establishment of an annuity fund. It is to be named Caisse des Placemens en Viager. It is to be established at 440 Rue Saint Méry and 435 Rue du Renard Saint Méry. Its motto is surety, stability, simplicity. Those who hold shares are to enjoy a progressive annuity. This annuity is paid according to their ages, and not to their shares; hence all the holders of shares who have attained any particular age receive the same rate of interest whatever may have been the price of their shares. The minimum of rate for the first age is six livres per share, and is assigned to the first class only; the primitive rate of the subsequent classes rises gradually to the twelfth, which comprehends the holders of shares who have attained their sixtieth year. By reckoning from the rate assigned to the first class, the annuity increases at fixed epochs, and rises by thirty-five gradations to the maximum of 5000 livres, which belongs to all the classes, and is paid to all holders of shares who have attained the age to which this last term of the progression relates. All the intermediate terms determine equally what is to be paid, without any distinction to the holders of shares in each class, in proportion as they arrive at the different ages which correspond to each rate of annuity. Those holders are divided into twelve classes, and each class into twelve series, each of which has a separate and distinct account.
At first view this plan seems to resemble a Tontine, but it is a very different thing. A Tontine divides annually amongst the survivors the shares of those deceased, but in this fund the probabilities of human life have been calculated, and by making them agree with the decrease of the capital invested, which together with their interest serve to augment the annuities, the movement of the funds and the death of the holder of shares are so combined that every holder knows at any given point the benefits he will derive at the different periods of his life.
The principle of the establishment consists “in an equality of annuities, payable to the same ages, whatever may have been the time of investment of the share, combined with an equality in the number of survivors among such holders of shares as have attained the same age, whatever may have been the time of becoming such.”
The holders have been distributed into twelve classes, the first of which has been fixed at 3200. It comprises only such individuals as are under a year old, and serves as a regulation of the decreasing numbers of each subsequent class. Thus the numbers decreasing of the shares in each class are as follows:
| First | 3200 |
| Second | 2400 |
| Third | 2242 |
| Fourth | 2102 |
| Fifth | 1940 |
| Sixth | 1792 |
| Seventh | 1648 |
| Eighth | 1438 |
| Ninth | 1200 |
| Tenth | 1020 |
| Eleventh | 838 |
| Twelfth | 656 |
In order to make the annuities equal for all ages it has been necessary only to reproduce in each class, at the age wherein each of the subsequent classes are introduced, an operation which consists simply in dividing this capital, the same for all the classes which have attained the same ages, by the number of shares in the class in question, which number is the same as that to which all former classes are reduced.
The twelve classes comprise from one year to sixty-five years; each class contains different periods of five, six, or seven years; all the individuals comprehended under these periods are considered as being of the same age, and paid as such until the extinction of the amount to which they belong. The total number of shares cannot exceed 245,712, and the prices of shares in the respective classes are thus regulated:
Prices of Shares.
| Livres. | Centimes. | ||
| 1. | Those who have not completed their first year | 140 | 0 |
| 2. | Those who have not completed their eighth year | 199 | 75 |
| 3. | From 8 to 13 years of age | 223 | 26 |
| 4. | „ 13 to 18 „ „ | 242 | 39 |
| 5. | „ 18 „ 24 „ „ | 260 | 91 |
| 6. | „ 24 „ 30 „ „ | 279 | 98 |
| 7. | „ 30 „ 36 „ „ | 301 | 52 |
| 8. | „ 36 „ 43 „ „ | 335 | 65 |
| 9. | „ 43 „ 50 „ „ | 383 | 28 |
| 10. | „ 50 „ 55 „ „ | 427 | 27 |
| 11. | „ 55 „ 60 „ „ | 479 | 84 |
| 12. | „ 60 „ 65 „ „ | 552 | 84 |
These shareholders receive a progressive annuity per share as follows:
Annuity.
| Livres. | Centimes. | ||
| 1. | Until 8 years of age | 6 | 0 |
| 2. | From 8 to 13 years of age | 8 | 0 |
| 3. | „ 13 to 18 „ „ | 10 | 0 |
| 4. | „ 18 „ 24 „ „ | 12 | 0 |
| 5. | „ 24 „ 30 „ „ | 13 | 0 |
| 6. | „ 30 „ 36 „ „ | 14 | 0 |
| 7. | „ 36 „ 43 „ „ | 16 | 0 |
| 8. | „ 43 „ 50 „ „ | 19 | 0 |
| 9. | „ 50 „ 55 „ „ | 23 | 0 |
| 10. | „ 55 „ 60 „ „ | 28 | 0 |
| 11. | „ 60 till death | 34 | 0 |
There is no limit to the number of shares a person may hold. Each class is to be closed as soon as the fixed number of shares shall have been completed.
As soon as a series of each class is closed, a new one will be opened, to be closed in its turn when the number of its shares shall be completed.
When 144 series of a class are closed, no further investments will be admitted. Besides the above annuity, the four last survivors of a class and of each series will divide between them the four-fifths of the residue of their account in proportion to the number of shares belonging to them, the remaining fifth belonging to the administration. The object of this institution, like the one I have described at Chaillot, is to make a comfortable provision for old age, by giving encouragement to a habit of economy. It is open to foreigners as well as to Frenchmen.
The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry is held at the Louvre and is open to all the world. Any person may be admitted a member on being presented by a member, received by the Council of Administration, and on paying annually at least a sum of thirty-six livres. The object of this society is to offer prizes for the invention, improvement and execution of machines or processes, advantageous to agriculture, arts and manufactures, to diffuse information respecting agriculture, arts and manufactures and to make experiments in order to ascertain the utility of new inventions and to afford pecuniary assistance to artists whose personal poverty prevents them being able to try the effects of their inventions.
The administration of this society is composed of men of first-rate ability, and is divided into five distinct committees: The Committee of Mechanical Arts, the Committee of Commerce, the Committee of Agriculture and those of Economical and Chemical Arts.