The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1905. STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7735, 10 February 1905, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1905. STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

| When the (Joverninent first propose;! seriously to consklcr the estni.Aisfa- ■ ment of State V,iv Insurance in ' New Zealand the mere idea of such a ' plan was met with laughter and conl.uimi.y. Hero and there perhaps a fat shareholder in one of our weilestablished private companies felt a premonitory shudder of his money- ' bags, but for the most part even | those most interested did, not take t ithe matter 100 seriously. It was, ; we were toild, the height of harebrained socialism,* and the person who thought such a department to be a financial possibility excited the scorn of better-informed men. But 'as the proposal continued to be pressed the companies lycc.uie posi- 1 ,tivelv u,!ftimed : . and issued literature , by the bushel to prove that whenever the S'tate competes against pri- i vale .enterprise such competition is a 1 fore-doomed failure. This was,, and I is, a good, uscjful, old contention, J and. if uttered in a loud, overbear- , inn and conclusive touj\ carries much convict/on to the imnds of people '• who do not think. It is a side issue that it is mostly fa'lse, but tliut dees not really effect iits conclusive- ] ness- in any serious degree. In the mouths of prosperous shareholders in ' | various insurance companies, and of ( I their often ridiculously overpaid cm- t ipioyoes, this argument was therefore t 'a very effectual damper on tile en- 1 |tkus;asinof those who wished the,' ! Govynment's proposal* the fullest { success?, but were too timicl?. or too . I friendly with someone else to sav 1 so out loud 1 . But {he upparentiy i strongest i>oint brought forward by J tile opponents of the scheme was the ] actuarial question of the distr'ibu- j "tion of risks: No company,, we were 1 told. which concentrated its risks ' within one small country eoni.l have j a possible hope of avoiding disss- | ter. Jt the Government persisted in I carrying its proposals into practice 1 there would certainly follow some j .igreat conflagration, which would , Ipractically sweep the Government i' 'and its foolish department of\ the ' taco of the earth. And it was more I than insinuated tha't l'rovidence j (would not be the just l'rovidence it < been called if that conflagration 1 did not come promptly. But,, in j | pile of all these vaticinations th« l ( ■ State Insurance Department mater- 1 jialised, and ia now in full swing. ! | The men who had previously called it P an impossibility now recognise fn it i the most serious competitive cxper- % ience of their financial lives, and f they have been stirred to devise ways f and means whereby they may ham- ' I>er the now Department and render f it unprofitable. Tho fjj-.sf evidence I that the public got of this was that r a secret, conclave was kyeing held, ' at which it was whispered momenjtous issues W£!'e to be decided. The 'a whole thing has now become practi-,< tally public property, and, boiled 4 down, it amounts to the old game of a fight at cutting rates, with jn possibly some private understanding 1 an to other legal comWnation against J the State Department'. That Departinent, and the people whose institii- a tion it is, can Bland as much cut- I'l ting competition as any private compativ. The public is sick of being t . robbed by insurance boodlerw, and if v there is any more robbery to do i' it calculates to take a hand in the v matter itself. The Australasian compiinies doingi business in New Zea- j] land have during the last year paid ii dividends running in one case up to 132 per cent, on their paid-up capi- y tal. The New Zeaflantl Company, whose annua? 1 meeting was telegraph- s od yesteiday,, paid 15 jiit cent., and l c added to reserves £39,089. This is the company whose acting chairman, ( in sympathising with shareholders on 'i t'ljo 'disagreeable fact, of Govern- I went competition, had the effrontery \ to call the honest effort of the peo- g pie oV the colony to protect them- h selves against robbery by the mean « name of "ISJcfeing," "The directors," " we are told by that gentlemen, "would not allow IMr colonial t business-, which had taken half ;!..con- y tury to build up, to be filched from '' them." Half a century has the New Zealand Company been engaged in 1 ' educating the public of this colony j( to pay without a murmur that it g may wijpv its Itfteen per cent, and ii pile up a reserve, which 111 totals up to £3sß,77s)—and now «'j the Government filches away its ]\] tame clients. The howl of the acting chairman of the N Company—the yell about filching— Monies well from a company which n, 'or fifty years hay practised the fr ethics of imsurajuy.' and .still l<] itands out for its fideeii pyr ccut. In these days when five pi-r cent, is a food rale on good security,, the w yjmpatiy which charges such piw ! H iiimns as we have had to pay to mike tlvs- large profit Is robb.'nohe public. Jt was time the jii'ur fir jerry owners of .New Zealand got a 11 hanee to protect themselves, and if hey are as wise ami patriotic as p] hey ougiht to Vmj no cutting; rates Zi houkl tempt them from g ; iving full gt upj>ort to their own State Insurnee Department. 3