The Daily News. WEDNESDAY. JUNE 12, 1901.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 119, 12 June 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY. JUNE 12, 1901.

NEW ZEALAND'S FIRE KE JORD. Thb raising of the rates of insurance has caused a gcod deal of discussion and the general feeling has been that the increase is due to losses outside the colony, The Mercantile Record pu f s a different complexiou on the matter and shows that the losses in the colony are really alarming and the comparison between the number of firts in the North and South Island is very striking. Indeed the whole article afford? plenty of food for thought, and certainly warrants the assumption th.t fires in every cisa should ba followed by a searching inyeatigatioo. In dealing with the matter our contemporary says: The fira record for May was quite as heavy as in April, the totnl insu-auce j loss for the past month being .£40,150. There were in all 23 fi es, of which 16 were in the North Island, involving a loss of £32,800 ag->inst 23 fires with a I'>BB of £19,645 in the co-responding month of last year, In the North Irland there were 7 fires, a low of ,£7,350 against 3 fires, with a loss of | ,£12,050 lsst year. During the past month five ptisons 1- st their livig in a fire at the Grand Ho'e', Auckland. The fire record since the beginning of" the year stands as under:

Ngkth Island. 1901 -No. of fires. Losses* £ January 27 .. 90,170 February .. 23 .. 14,475 March .. 17 .. 5,525 April .. 20 .. 10,532 May 16 .. 32,800 Total .. 103 .. £153,502 South Island 1901 No. of Fires Losses 1 £ January 14 .. 20,570 February ... 11 .. 7,580 March .. 16 .. 12,840 April .. 10 .. 31,300 May . . .. 7 ... 7,350 Totul .. 58 .. £79,640 The above figures ara rather under the mark and ih y show a disastrous state of affairs. In five months there have been 161 fires in/olvirig the underwriters in looses aggregating £233,142. If the rest of the year is to show thp same bsa rates the fi'st year of the new i century will he one to bs remembsred by the underwriters of New Zealand. It is hard to believe that a country which can show such a fire record is enjoying a measure of p-osperity, and yet that is tha proffs-:ed opinion of all classfs of the community, Here is an interesting problem for solution for those who revel in abstruse questions.