CAPTAIN BALDWIN'S LECTURE ON LIFE ASSURANCE.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 921, 1 February 1872, Page 2

CAPTAIN BALDWIN'S LECTURE ON LIFE ASSURANCE.

Captain Baldwin, the Travelling Sub-Commissioner of the Government Lil'e Insurance Department, delivered an interesting and instructive lecture on the above subject in the Masonic Hall, on Tuesday nigh*:. The chair was occupied byDr Giles, who, after a few appropriate remarks, introduced the lecturer to the audience.

Captain Baldwin commenced by commenting on the apathy and indifference displayed by the public with regard to insurance. People, he said, saw the necessity of effecting insurance*, and they did so, but as a rule without making any enquiry as to the position of the company in which they took out their policies. It was principally owing to this apathy and indifference that so many private companies had come to grief at home of late, and so much misery and ruin had been entailed upon deserving persons. People listened to the plausible statements of interested parties, but they never troubled their heads to inquire if these statements were true or false; they were "gulled and suffered for their gullibility. M'Culloch, in his Commercial Dictionary, warned the public against this, in these words, " The advertisements daily appearing in the newspapers, and the practices known to be resorted to to procure business ought to make every prudent individual consider well what he is about before insuring his life in a private company." He then quoted Mr Gladstone's speech in the House of Commons, when introducing a scheme there upon which this New Zealand Government one was founded, to show that during the first thirty-seven years of its existence, every insurance company receives a much larger amount of money than it has to pay away. He then quoted in support of this the following extract from a leader in the London " Times." " The nature of lifo assurauce justifies special legislation. The contract is for a long and indefinite term ; the assured has no hold of the company, but must go on paying year after year or surrender his policy on such terms as the company chooses to exact, these terms being sometimes scandalously unfair. The managers of companies again have every inducement to extravagance and every facility for fraud. The company may start with little or no capital because at first the business is all receipt and no expenditure. By advertising, by agencies, by offering large inducements, they are sure to get a certain number of customers, and all goes on swimmingly for many years. It is only when the lives drop in that the rottenness of the concern appears, and the policy holders find they have been victimized. "What are the conductors of a company to do in such a case? Mr Montague Figg on being asked this question replied, " Bolt." Mr Gladstone introduced a measure into the English House of Commons, some six or seven years ago to enable the Home Government to carry out this subject of life insurance itself, and it received the warm support of the House and the country, became law, and is now in operation in England. The General Government, following in Mr Gladstone's footsteps introduced a similar measure into the colony, and the scheme was now being warmly and largely taken advantage of by the people of New Zealand in every direction. Security was the great thing in life assurance. Without security no man should think of investing a single sixpence in a policy. Now the Government scheme offered this security, and this was one of the reasons why it was so very popular and so very successful. It was joiued not only by the large masses of the people, but by almost every banker, every merchant, every newspaper proprietor, editor, and leading politician throughout the colony, by in fact the majority of the shrewd, thoughtful, and thinking persons in the community. During the past year, the first of its existence, it could point to a success which had never been attained in the history of life assurance, as far as he was aware. Next to security came the question of cheapness, and the lecturer explained why a Government could carry out an insurance scheme cheaper than a private company. He showed that this

was so in the case of tho New Zealand Government by quoting the following figures:—A man of twenty-live to insure his life for £IOO would pay ; the Royal, £1 19s 7d a year ; the Australian Alliance, £1 17s 8d ; the London, Liverpool, and Globe, £1 17s 8d ; the Victoria, £1 17s 5d ; the City of Glasgow, £ll7sGd; the Government, £1 14s lid.

[Tho lecture will be resumed in our next issue.]