THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1908. CONFIRMATION AND JUSTIFICATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9047, 5 February 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1908. CONFIRMATION AND JUSTIFICATION.

Our leader yesterday respecting the proposed increase of fire rates by the insurance companies and the probability of the Government Fire Insurance Department joining hands with its rivals has created a good deal of l interest throughout, the dominion, as will be observed from the information from Wellington, Dunedin and Auckland, published in another column. Our statements were made on authority it was impossibb to ignore, and the investigations of Press representatives in the chief centres give confirmation, if confirmation were necessary, to our assertion, although the insurance authorities are naturally guarded in their answers to the questions put to them. The Auckland managers simply disclaim any knowledge of a general increase in rates. The Wellington "Post," while "failing to elicit confirmation

of the Wairarapa paper's statement," says:—"lt was generally admitted by several managers of private companies that the rates were much too low to be profitable." Various circumstances it is said,, have caused the year to open inauspiciously for all offices, rendering more than usual caution necessary. The general manager of the State Fire Office says he has received no information from the Government of any rise of rates so far as his office is concerned. He would doubtless be directed as to his reply to enquiries. The Dunedin representatives only go so far as to declare that the statement "is premature."' One manager admits that his company has shown a deficit for the first time in sixty years, and another expresses the opinion that "the State Department was now beginning to feel its loss, and was anxiously waiting for the premiums to be increased." Thus, reading between the lines, it must be clear to business men that our statement is in no way contradicted, but receives in some directions confirmation. Our announcement may perhaps be embarrassing to the insurance companies and the State Department, but it will be found to be justified by the subsequent action of those controlling insurance affairs.