The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1885. Fire Insurance

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 10, 4 July 1885, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1885. Fire Insurance

A mbetiwo of insurers will be held at the office of Mr Charles Bbay on Thursday evening next. The business will be to receive the report of the Chairman, Mr J. C. Thompson*, on the success which has attended his eiforts as delegate to Pahnerston and other places in the district to where the movement to get a reduction of the present insurance rates has been extended. Since the first meeting was held here on this subject a Bill has been hud before Parliament by Sir Julius Voqel, entitled the Companies Act 1882 and Foreign Companies Act 1884 Amendment, which has caused quite a flutter of excitement in the minds of directors of insurance companies, the outcome of which has been that several deputations have waited! on the introducer of the Bill, asking that certain modifications, favorable to the several companies represented, be made. What replies Sir Jttltjis made it is not necessary for us to consider now. What we have to consider is how the Bill, if passed, would affect ourselves. At the outset we may at o*oo declare our opinion that the honest intention of the Bill is to protect the insurers. It wa» mooted at the first meeting of insurers here that a foreign company should be invited to take over the risks opposite the names entered on the schedules then prepared, and the idea was received with considerable favor. But since then the introduction of the Bill mentioned has made it necessary for this view to be given up altogether, because clause 6 will provide that every foreign company shall before commencing business deposit with the Public Trustee securities to the value of £20,000, and to maintain such deposit so long as the company continues to carry on business. This rule applies to foreign companies already doing business in the colony. Under these conditions it is highly improbable that any foreign company would accept any invitation given from us to open in this colony at this time. The only plan which remains will be to bring such pressure to bear on the local companies as will force them to make those concessions out of fear which they will not make out of a sense of justice. How that pressure is to be applied it will be the duty of the meeting to consider.