The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1913. MARINE INSURANCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 21, 29 May 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1913. MARINE INSURANCE.

At the annual meeting of shareholders in the Cunar.d Company, held last month, the Chairman,’ AJr A. A. Booth, in the course of his speech lemaiked on the great expansion of revenue, from £3,081,263 in 1911 to £3,584,340 in 1942. The conditions of the freight market were generally favourable throughout the year, and the company s revenue had therefore benefited considerably. Working expenses had risen from £1,997,962 in 1911 to £2,339,149 in 1912, largely due to the handling of a very much larger business. In reviewing the company’s business prospects for the near future, which he regarded with | considerable confidence, the Chairman | said they were looking forward keenI ly to the time when the Aquitania would come into service, early next year. European and Canadian business had grown satisfactorily. Continental steerage rates had been disturbed to a certain extent since the beginning of the year, but negotiations were going on, and a satisfactory settlement should be arrived at before very long. With the immense values now represented by the modern Atlantic liner, a rate war of the oldfashioned kind could not last very long without the most disastrous financial results to all concerned. There must, therefore be agreements of one kind or another, but this did not mean that any monopoly was created. On the contrary, the remunerative level of rates, which a rate agreement or pool implied, created exactly the conditions which made it possible for a new competitor to embark upon the bnsine&s with some chance of success. If there were unrestricted competition, with the utter demoralisation of rates which would be the inevitable consequence,the new-comer would stand no chance, and if such a state j

of affairs lasted long only the strongest among tho old-established lines would be able to weather the storm. Later at an extraordinary meeting of tiie Company, a resolution was pass-

ed sanctioning an alteration of the articles of association which will enable the directors to enter into arrangements for insurance on the mutual principle. The Chairman said; that from time to time the Lusitania : and Mauretania first came into commission they had had great difficulty in securing adequate insurance, owing j to the very high values involved. The) largest amount of insurance which could be placed upon one vessel under normal conditions did not exceed about £'Boo,ooo. By paying high rates underwriters might he tempted, a good deal against the grain, to increase their lines above their ordinary limits ; but even with the underwriting capacity of the whole marine insurance world stretched to its utmost, they had been left from the first with very large amounts entirely uncovered—amounts quite disproportionately large when compared with uninsured risks on any other vessels. Other companies were now experiencing tho same difficulties, and the formation of a mutual association had been under disenjssion for some time between themselves, the White Star line and the Ham lun g-American line, and only details remained to be settled. They had not the slightest intention- of doing without the services of marine insurance underwriters; they simply wanted to be saved from the necessity of urging them to write larger lines than they really cared to take, and to spread uninsured risks over a larger number of ships of the very highest class.