We should not be surprised if ordinary people begin to ask what itiswhichlessens the allowance of common sense in people when they act as Directors and managers of Fire Insurance Companies. Certainly European and American directorates cannot have lost their heads by the success of the operations of their companies in late years. Competition, extravagant commissions to agents and brokers, a wild eagerness to take almost any risk, have rendered fire insurance very unprofitable for several years past. In many cases the result has been severe losses and in no instance that we can recall have the profits earned by the fighting offices been adequate to the risks they ran, Old established companies, whose solid reputation makes them almost impregnable to attack, have held their own, but eveninthesecasestheir profits have been seriously diminished. There are probably somewhere between a dozen and a score of Fire Insurance Offices in the world whose regulation is so established and sure, whose resources are so great, and with whom steady-going folk like to deal, that they will continue to thrive under almost every conceivable circumstance, But the great bulk of the companies—those of the second rank—have not the same commanding position, they must give securities to the public in the shape of prudent managemeut—to use this phrase in its most comprehensive sense—in order to maintain such reputation as they possess. Still more is it necessary that younger offices should do nothing likely to lead the quiet-going public, which while it likes cheapness ikes safety still more, to think that they are ready to do business almost on any terms. "Competition is of course the soul of trade, and it is very desirable that in these Jean years the charges on business should be reduced as much as possible, but it seems to us, and we believe the opinion is very generally shared by men of business here, that by the recent lowering of this tariff the Home offices have gone too far. Io use a current phrase, the reduction will do nobody any good. We deferred comment on the action of the Home Offices until we knew if they made avy change in rates elsewhere. "Apparently after some hesitation they have lowered the rates in Hongkong in the same way as they have done here. The tariff has been lowered, but it does not seem, that we have often heard during the last ten days, that it will not go lower still; indeed it is commonly rumoured that insurance has been done here on first class risks at three sixteenths per cent., or one sixteenth per cent. under the lowest advertised rates, We are not going to examine into the adequacy or otherwise of these rates for the risks which insurance offices run upon really first-class property and "contents" in Shanghai; that is a matter for the offices to decide, just as it is for a banker to say whether the profit he gets on the money he turn over is sufficient for the risks he runs. What we want to point out is that the system of cutting under the published or general tariff of rates, and covering this by some asserted,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.