The Evening Star FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 3033, 8 November 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1872.

The Report of the Commissioner of Annuities, as laid before the Assembly last session, places ns in possession of some particulars as to the operations of the Govern men t Life Insurance Department during the past year, to which we invite our readers’ attention. From this Report we learn that the Government scheme of Insurance has bceil largely availed of; and now that it is beginning to become better known, it is growing more and more popular throughout the whole Colony. If success can he looked upon as a test of popularity, there is no doubt as to its being popular. It certainly has been successful—successful beyond all precedent in the history of Life Insurance. The matter is thus referred to in the Report to which we are alluding : Adverting to the comparative return numbered 3, showing the business transacted during the twelve months by fifteen private offices of very long standing (thirty-six years being tho average), ns shown in their last published reports, I thind that it is a subject of congratulation to tho Colony that the New Zealand Government Insurance Department, which practically came into existence only about two years ago, holds so high a place in that list. When we turn to this list, to which passing reference is thus made, we find the Government Office standing sixth highest as regards tin; number of policies issued ; standing above such old and well-known Offices as the Royal; the Liverpool, London, and Globe ; the Scottish Equitable, and others of as good a status. And when wo come to consider the ages of these Companies, with which the Government Office is thus contrasted, their high reputation in the insurance world, and the millions of people they have to work upon, we must of necessity admit that the Commissioner of Annuities was justified in his congratulations in that tho Department had come out of the contrast with such flying colors. But from the very first, indeed, it required no extra amount of foresight or penetration to see that the success of the scheme was entirely a question of time. There was no difficulty in foretelling its success, though few would have ventured to predict so huge a measure of success at this early stage of its existence. Security is the great desideratum in Life Insurance, and the Government scheme oflbred this desideratum to the insuring public. The habit of making provision for our families by insurance is deeply woven into our natures and practice; but deep as is its hold upon us, the events of the past few years Imre gone far to shako public confidence in the whole thing. It was difficult, in truth, for public confidence to withstand the rude shocks experienced by the collapse of such great companies as the Albert and European, and the attendant misery and ruin that fell upon thousands of poor families.

You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house ; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live, Mr Lowe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressed the general feeling of uneasiness that obtains of late years respecting Life Insurance, when, speaking on the second reading of the Companies Life Insurance Bill, ho says ; l am unwilling to sit down without saying that I desire most earnestly that something may be done whereby we may take away that which is a reproach to our laws—that there arc no means whereby an Englishman—a man not highly educated, so as to he capable of judging of these problems—can assure his life in such a way as to be perfectly cor lain that on Ids death the benefit which he designs for those whom lie may leave behind may come to them. There is at present no such tiling iu this country. Wc are, I suppose, all insured somewhere or another ; but it is a mere probability. There is no means by which a man can avoid the most painful position iu which he can be placed that of dying in doubt and miviety whether Ids family will receive the provision he has made for them, Aud fto it is. A man may, us a rule, test the solvency of all other transactions ; but he cannot apply anything in the shape of a reliable test to Life Insurance, He cannot do so, because he has no reliable data to go upon; nothing to guide him but the reputation of the company, a delusive test, as many and many a man has found out before now to his sorrow. Now, in the case of the Government Life Insurance, the security is the Colony itself. A policy-holder has as good a security, as indefensible a title as a man has for his property puder the Land Transfer Act, As long as LJe yr Zealand lasts, so long must his security be respected. We pass by as altogether unworthy of notice the dark forebodings and dire prognostications as to the dreadful future, which a few dissatisfied persons would have us believe i.s in store for the Colony—a future so dreadful that of a surety chaos itself must come again. Wo do so, beause there are .dissatisfied men of this stamp, and there will be such men in every society as long as the woild lasts—men in whose way it comes naturally,

and as a matter of course to see the dark side, and the dark side only, of everything, and to whom the darkness is thick as that which covered the land of Egypt ; and it would be too much to expect that New Zealand should prove any exception to the rule. 13ut as far as this Government scheme is concerned, nothing short of irretrievable insolvency, nothing less than hopeless ruin—a ruin hopeless beyond all hope of recovery—dreadful even beyond the imaginings of the veriest of Oassandras—can defeat the settlement of any claim that may be made upon it. From the Report we also gather that new and more satisfactory arrangements as to the future investment of the funds of the department have been made. Securities for the amount of funds invested with the trust funds of the Colony are to be taken and set apart, and quarterly interest is from thenceforward to be allowed the oliice. It may at first sight appear a matter of small moment whether interest is paid half-yearly or quarterly on these invested funds, but a very slight knowledge of the principles of Life insurance is sufficient to show that the matter of compound interest constitutes in truth one of the very strongest elements of success in carrying out the business. One of the cries raised against this measure by its interested opponents — the only one indeed that could be raised, the absorption of the funds of the department in the general revenue of the Colony—though without foundation as to the past, cannot have the slightess semblance of foundation in the future, seeing that these funds are from this time forward, we understand, to become vested in the Public Trustee of the Colony, under the Public Trust Office Bill of last session. There are other matters connected with the Government scheme of Life Insurance which we should wish to touch upon, but we shall return to the further consideration of the subject on a future occasion.