FIRE INSURANCE POLICIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 346, 23 March 1910, Page 3

FIRE INSURANCE POLICIES.

REPLY TO MR. MAXWELL. Mr. (J, P. Wake, of Eltham, writes as follows to our Uuwera contemporary: — inn: insurance is evidently a subject in which _Ur. Maxwell is warmly interested, judging by the heated language he | saw fit tn use. at the recens Farmers' I Union meeting. He stated he had "a matter to bring forward which he want-: ed the members to take very seriously," hut it is impossible to believe that the | public can take very seriously a'gentleman who uses the language your reporter attributes to Mr. Maxwell. When he charges the Government Departments with ''stealing," ''robbing/' "defrauding," and ignoring "business integrity, decency and morality, - ' he is perfectly well a 1 ware that his courage .is of that cheap and showy kind which dares to make use of .expressions concerning a Department which the laws . of libel would make him fear to utter if j it were a private business man he was I attacking. . Mr. Maxwell suggests that if the Minister has authorised what is complained of then "the Minister is unfit to be associated with by ordinary men." Certainly—gaol him' Indeed, why not hang him at once and be done with it? Alsp hang his wife and his : cook, and put,his colleagues into gaol, and then, perhaps, when all obstacles are removed, Mr. Maxwell's long-disap-pointed political friends will have enough energy to get into office! Xow what ' are the facts regarding this fire insurance question ?

1 (1) It has been the practice for mortI gages to the Government Advances to I Settlers Department to include a pro 1 vision leaving it to the mortgagee u> , direct what fire office the mortgagor , shall insure ill. ' (2) Private mortgagees very eOininOHly reserve in their mortgage deeds the right to decide what office the mortgagor shall insure in. (3) It is a distinct advantage to mortgagees and particularly to mortgagees doing the huge lending business done bv the State, to have all their insurances in one fire office, which will take precautions to prevent renewals from lapsing. (4) Mr. Maxwell presumably knew of the provision in his mortgage deed relating to fire insurance when he signed it. (5) If ho was not intelligent enough to understand. the express and implied terms of the deed' he signed then his remarks are not worth attention.

(6) If he understood the full contents of the deed he signed then he has no grounds for complaint when the m"" I '- gagee's agent courteously requests bin: to do what he covenanted to do.

(7) It is customary in insurance circles for all proposals to pass through the hands of the local agents. (8) The existence of a mortgage is not a confidential matter, which it is necessary to disclose to a local insurance agent who accepts a proposal. (9) If the Advances Department, instead of informing the local agent of the existence of its mortgage, wrote direct to the mortgagor requesting him to carry out his contract and effect an insurance in the State Office, the local State Office agent would still have to be informed —by the mortgagor himself —of the existence of a mortgage to the Government.

(10) The practice of the State lending departments requesting its borrowers to effect fire insurance in u specified office is not at all an unusual one, but has been adopted for years by various lending institutions and private capitalists in Taranaki and other parts of New Zealand.

(11) In manv cases, however, such .institutions and capitalists do not follow the State's practice of "requesting." but they very peremptorily "insist,"

I (12) Mr. Maxwell's suggestion that the Farmers' Mutual Office has been speeialI ly singled out is absolutelv incorrect; ! every insurance office in the Dnmin'on, the State Office not excepted, has lost policies through the assertion bv mortgagees of their undoubted ri?ht. to direct in what particular office their security snail be insured. Mr. Maxwell feels it is his business "to see that the farmers are not fleeced." It is difficult to see how farmers were fleeced by the establishment of a State Fire Office which admittedly had the effect of reducing fire premiums. Some of the statements which fell from the gentleman in question are too profound for an ordinary intelligence to grasp. When he states that "the Government pretend that they are entirely free from State interference" (i.e., the Government pretending freedom from Government interference), one thinks of the parallel of a man sitting down on himself, while his brother is busy lifting himself up by his own boot-tags! This reckless critic, in his burning zeal, also refers to the property-tax. If he were not in a sound political sleep he would possibly be aware that there is no pro-pertv-tax in New Zealand; it was abolished nearly 20 years ago. Mr. Maxwell feared that unless his resolution were couched in intemperate langunge "it would go to the waste-paper basket," but if the Minister is at all •careful of the character of the contents of his waste-paper basket, I fear that Mr. Maxwell's extraordinary production will never roach that quiet haven—it is nuich more likely to reach an appropriate place on a State fire in the Minister's grate.