39. An account to be taken by the Bank on the 5th of January in each year, of all annuities which have been unclaimed for three years; such annuities to cease to be chargeable on the consolidated fund: upon the annuity being claimed, it is to be restored. The remainder of the Act relates chiefly to the penalties for fraud, &c. In 1833 another Act was passed in order to enable the depositors in savings' banks to purchase annuities for lives and years. The provisions of the Act do not materially differ from the above, except in the amount for which they are to be granted, which is not to exceed £20 per annum, (3 Will. IV., c. 14.) The tables of the price of annuities which are issued at the National Debt Office, are calculated with reference to the interest paid by the 3 per cents., according to their value in the market. The mode of computation is somewhat intricate, the price of the 3 per cents. mentioned in the tables, is the mean price of consols and reduced 3 per cents., after deducting the interest accrued upon both stocks from the last dividend to the day of contracting for the annuity:-thus, if an annuity be purchased upon the first of May in any year, the price of 3 per cent. consols being 90, and of reduced 3 per cents. 89; the following is the calculation in order to find the actual value of 3 per cent. stock on that day, by which the price of an annuity either for a fixed term, or on a life, according to the government tables is regulated. 3 per cent. consols Deduct interest accrued from the 5th of January Per cent. £90 0 0 0 19 3 £89 0 9 By the above method the price of a government annuity may be easily determined within a trifling sum, by referring to the column in the tables, at the head of which the net price of 3 per cent. stock, thus computed occurs. If one of the 3 per cent. stocks be shut for the dividend, the calculation is made in the other, by merely deducting the accruing interest from the average price of such stock on the day of contract. If any stock bearing a higher rate of interest be tendered at the annuity office, it is converted into 3 per cents. by calculation, according to the average price of such stock on the day of tender. Payment may also be made for an annuity in money, in which case a charge of 2s. 6d. per cent. on the amount invested is made at the annuity office, in order to defray the expense of laying out the money in the government funds, in the names of the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt. Deferred annuities are also granted at the national debt office, both for lives and years; but very few of this description have yet been taken. The amount outstanding on the 5th of January, 1837, was £4327 198., viz: Deferred life annuities, per 10 Geo. IV., £. 8. d. 4222 19 0 105 0 0 £4327 19 0 The most celebrated tables of the expectation of life are those of Northampton and Carlisle, the former by Dr. Price, the latter by Mr. Milne; by reference to the subsequent comparison of these tables, (No. 4) it will be seen that a considerable difference exists. In these observations no distinction was made between the sexes, as in the government life annuity tables at present in use. Life annuities were formerly granted by govern ment according to the Northampton scale, and it was not until the year 1829, that the inaccuracy of it was fully discovered; the mean duration of life of the two sexes, according to the present government tables, approximates very nearly to the observations made at Carlisle, by Mr. Milne. Nos. 3 and 5 exhibit the price of the government annuities, according to the tables now in use. The following condensed statement of the variations in the price of the 3 per cents. is from Mr. Mc Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce. "From 1730 till the rebellion of 1745, the 3 per cents. were never under 89, and were once in June, 1737, as high as 107. During the rebellion they sank to 76; but in 1749, rose again to 100. In the interval between the Peace of Paris, in 1763, and the breaking out of the American war, they averaged from 80 to 90; but towards the close of the war they sank to 54. In 1792, they were at one time as high as 96. In 1797 the prospects of the country, owing to the successes of the French, the mutiny in the fleet, and other adverse circumstances, were by no means favourable; and in consequence, the price of 3 per cents. sank on the 20th of September, on the intelligence transpiring of an attempt to negociate with the French republic having failed, to 473, being the lowest price to which they have ever fallen." |