Speaking of Marine Insurance he stated that, the coastal blockade and disruption "of railways and. canal trafic brought domestic trade in the war areas to a standstill. Although the foreign shipping companies. are doing their part In trying to keep the trade routes open, the movement of cargo is but a small fraction of pre-war days. Such marine insurance as was available was largely on foreign controlled shipments and we had very little business Coastal or Yangtse River shipments. The dumping of cargo at the various deviated ports following the opening of hostilities in Shanghai, resulted in innumerable claims due to insutficient packing or inadequate handing.
Oiher matters concerning insurance business were also reported Mr, How. He commented on tant control and government legislation Translations He referred to the rendition of insurance policies into the Chinese Tanguage under the auspices of the Shanghai Insurance Association. He reported that all fire and motor car insurance policy conditions, warranties, wordings and endorsements were successfully translated—into Chinese and submitted to other Associations concerned for comment.
Efforts are now being made to translate marine policies. He _was convinced that Chinese insurance companies could never full their proper function in the economic and ancial development of China when policies had to be issued in a foreign Tanguage which the majority of insured is unable to read, not to say understand. He hoped that this difficult but' good work would "be carried through to its finish and be uniformly adopted by all companies in the near future, Jamounted to $1,180,734.70, They yielded us an average return 349 per cent. per annum as compared. with 7% per cent. per annum. the previous year.. The drop in invest ment Income ig accounted for by the Jacquisition of lower interest. bearing! securities and loss of rents caused by evacuation of tenants. Except for house property of $237,000.00, all the Investments are readily marketable although market values have in some instances depreciated on account lof the present hostilities. In. order amply safeguard our investment position, we have deemed It wise to deviate from our usual practice of appropriating additional reserves the various Underwriting Funds and to allocate out of the current gross profits $110,000.00 as an Investment Reserve. We took this course, be-Jeause we believe that our Under-]writing Funds are adequate at our present stage of development, while Jo strengthening of our investment position is highly desirable weathering the storm. We have also transferred $15,000.00 "from Reserve for Exchange' Fluctuation account into Investment Reserve account, Jexchange rates are fairly steady. Taking into" consideration the Joriginal balance of $75,000.00 in the investment Reserve account, we now have a Reserve for. Tnvestments Fluctuation of $200,000.00. This Jamount is believed adequate for the present to meet any possible depre-legation in value.
The corporation had not experi-Jenced any difeulty in their collec ions. In spite of the hostilities and the consequent freezing of credits Jand an increased volume of business, Mr. How reported that. they were to reduce outstanding premium Jat the end of the year by approximately" 4000000 as compared with In view of the fact that a revival Jof trade and industry can not. be discerned at the present and that the indications are that times will increasingly harder as the months by, the directors have thought It not to recommend the declaration Jof a dividend but to carry. the junappropriated balance forward to provide for any contingency in 1938. [The total funds of the Corporation now as follows:—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.