TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1885. Government Insurance

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 149, 2 June 1885, Page 2

TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1885. Government Insurance

The agitation which is now going on in Wellington on the subject of the Government Insurance may ultimately be productive of much good to the insurers, but the present conduct of the agitators, who are members of the Board, is not likely to inspire confidence in the institution. Those who are already policy holders will no doubt cling to tteir policies, but persons desirous of effecting new ones will not be tempted to do business with the Government offi -.c when so much disunion seems to exist among those who are placed in authority. It strikes any ordinary observer with astonishment that the Board, which, as everybody knows, is composed of members nominated by the Government and members elected by the policy holders, should be unable to take up a "going" business and carry it on without the exercise of the qualities of modesty and patience. We use these terms advisedly, for they should be modest as to their knowledge of the business they were appointed to manage, and patient in learning the routine which is absolutely indispensible in all such institutions. Even Sir Julius Yogel could not " evolve from his inner con- ' sciousncss " how a " going business " has been conducted in the past. It would take him, clever as he undoubtedly is, months to arrive at a thorough comprehension of the thousands of details which go to make the aggregate of an insurance business. How much more difficult must it be, then, for some of the other members of the Board to gain the required knowledge and be able to talk or act intelligently on the subject at the meetings of the Board, when their knowledge, with few exceptions, is absolutely nothing ; ex nihilo nihiljit. Be it remembered, however, these gentlemen were not appointed or elected because they were supposed to be specialists on life insurance. They were put in their several positions because those who appointed some, and those who elected others, believed they were practical, shrewd, business men, who would bring large commercial experience to boar on an institution which in tho past was generally believed to have been conducted in a most unbusinesslike manner. This hope appears likely to be illusory, if one may judge by the reports of a recent meeting of policy holders held in Wellington, where the Chairman and one of the members of the Board appeared so ignorant of the first principles of business that they, unwittingly perhaps, did much to destroy public con fidence in the institution by their divergence of views and misrepresentation of facts and figures. The amount of injury done by their conduct is greater than will be repaired by years of unceasing activity on the part of agents. In place of the meetings of the Beard being conducted on the same lines of the., meetings of other Boards of Directors — where the object is to do the business of the companies in such a way that profitable results may follow — they have been on the principle of a bear garden, where the mere fact of one member proposing a thing is good and sufficient reason for the opposition of another member, without enquiry as to whether the proposition is useful or the contrary. There is only one remedy for the threatening evils, and that is to do away with nominee members altogether. A nominee of the Government is a servant of the Government ; not of the policy holders, who in this case take the place of the shareholders. It may be argued that as the Government guarantee the policies, they should be represented on the Board. We quite agree with this, but would suggest that if the electors generally, »r to save expense the members of the House, elected a proportion equal to that of the policy holders that objection would be met.