Finace, Stocks, and Mining.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 36, 9 March 1901, Page 5

Finace, Stocks, and Mining.

THU Standard Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand enjoyed, on the whole, a very prosperous year in 1900, for which General Manager T. R. Fisher deserves unstinted praise. • • • It was the year 1897 when the Standard was badly beaten by the fire losses, and the year wound up with, an underwriting loss of £8607, although the premium income for that year was up to the average. The losses in 1897 totalled £43,12G, or 86.15 of the premium income. • * * In the following year the underwriting profit was £353," the profit for 1899 was £7356, and for last year £10,425. This is the record for eight or ten years. The premium income last year amounted to £55,475, and the losses to £29,830, or 53.77 of the premium income. The expenses of management totalled £15,220, or 27.44 per cent. • » * The balance available for the year including the nett amount earned over from 1899 is £20,258, which is applied as follows — Written off office furniture, etc., £1065; added to reserve fund, £5000, dividend, 7\ per cent., £5625; bonus, 2^ per cent , £1870 leaving £0693 to be carried forward. • * * Shareholders of the Standard greatly appreciate the bonus of 2-J per cent., as it stiffens up the market value of the shares. The record of the Standard during the past three years is distinctly good. # # The current year has opened very badly for the insurance companies. The losses for the first two months has reached the very fine total of £130,000. As the premiums collected in New Zealand by the 26 or 27 companies operating here does not exceed £250,000, it is obvious that a bifj hole has already been made in the receipts. Then, there are the working expenses and general charges to be provided for. • * • The North Island provides the greater number of fires and heaviest losses, and the underwriters are going to stiffen up the rates. This was decided upon at the conference held in Dunedin last month, but negotiations that are now going on amongst the various offices are hanging the matter up. The increase in the rates will be substantial. • * • Messrs. Smith and Gilberd, the Fire Brigade Superintendents who visited Paris last year : have made a lengthy report, and their recommendations with respect to fire prevention are well up to date. The suggestions that fire inquests should bo held every time there is a fire ought to be carried out. • • • The moral hazard is a very big element in fire insurance, and it is a difficult matter to contend with. The publicity which an official inquiry would involve is calculated to make a good many people keep more strictly than they otherwise might to the paths of rectitude and square dealing. • • * The London butter market is flattening out, and prices are going down. Tooley-street is now looking to Denmark, Canada, and Ireland for supplies, and the colonial season may be said to have terminated. There is only the Easter trade left to move prices a bit. • * » The break up of the London market will not affect us, because there is a strong demand for butter for Australia. Dealers are pushing around, picking up any stray lots they can get hold of for shipment to West Australia. • • • It is just as well to make the best of our opportunities, for when the Commonwealth tariff is fixed upon most of our produce will be shut out. Premier Barton said, in a speech at Melbourne the other day, that New South Wales would have to submit to a tariff higher than has yet been known in that colony- , When the Dibbs Government was in power the protection tariff played up with our trade, and the Commonwealth tcHiff will do the same. The Union Comnany's boats in the Austiahan-New Zealand trade will feel the pinch, because there will be less cargo to carry. • • • Australian freight rates must then be advanced, and passenger rates also will go up, not that they are any way low now. To make up for losses in this direction the Hon. George McLean and Mr. James Mills will see that the coastal fareb and freights are put up.

Then if the Commonwealth Parliament passes navigation laws on the American lines, as seems quite possible, the Union Company may be compelled to transfer its headquarters to either Melbourne or Sydney, or submit to the loss of its Tas-maniah-Australian trades. • • • These trade losses are the penalties of isolation, but, as New Zealand is selfcontained and self-containing, and the New Zealander is a better man physically and morally than the Australian, we will be able to find consolation in contemplating our pre-eminent virtues, and remarkable resources. Seriously, though, New Zealand will not have much difficulty in paddling her own canoe. • • • The flour-millers have combined, and up goes the price of flour. Of course, flour-milling is an industry that has never paid, so the millers will say, and not a few of them can write very decent cheques. • • • The Flour-millers' Association is on all fours with the American trust system, but one can scarcely blame the millers for combining. If it is right for any set of men to combine to force up wages, then ,there can be no wrong in manufacturers combining to force up the prices of commodities. • * * Mr. James Henderson, who recently retired from the firm of Henderson and Burns, sharebrokers, Christchurch, lias loined Mr. J. Martyn Hume, of Wellington, and the new firm will be known as Henderson and Hume. • • • Mr. Henderson knows the sharebrokine business as well as any man in the colony. He knows how to make clients, and keep them, and Mr. Hume has eer<ainlv done a good stroke of business in joining forces with Mr. Henderson. • • • There will presently be a very great deal of sharebroking transacted in Wellington, which is bound to get the cream of the West Coast dredging business. The West Coast has not really got going yet, but it will very soon, when there will be a mushroom growth of brokers in the city. • » ♦ The Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation tackles accident insurance, employers' liability insurance, burglary, plate-glass, and other schemes of insurance, with great vigour, and with great profit. • • • The balance-sheet for the year ended 31st December shows, according to cable advices, to have amounted to £878,492, as against £748,732 in 1899. The balance to the credit of profit and loss account, after paying all claims and expenses, and including provision for outstanding claims, was £346,643. The reserves at the 31st December amounted to £921,417, and the total assets to £l,i 1,900. • * * The Ocean Accident has made the pace warm ever since it opened out in the colonies and has built up a large business in Australasia. The New Zealand bus) ness has grown very considerably, and the competition is as keen as a razor. Insurers are getting the full benefits of cheap insurance. What we like about the Ocean Accident is that it does not work on tariffs with others, but goes on its own, and "gets there," as the Americans say. • • • The Lady Charlton dredge was to have commenced operations on Thursday. Good returns are expected from the jump. • • • The Reefton United Dredging Company is about to build its dredge, and tenders have been called. • ♦ • West Coasters are very pleased at the results of the recent "salting" cases, and are taking great trouble to let everyone know that they do not approve of such nefarious practices. • ♦ • There ib no doubt that the conviction of the Lawson Brothers has cleared the Coast of a huge blot. The most surprising thing about the whole affair is that a jury was found that would convict, but then the evidence was so clear, and the judge's summing-up so convincing, that it would have been a great miscarriage of justice if the Lawson brothers did not get their two years hard. • • • The Coast will reap the benefit of this piosentlv, for speculators will take more kinrlK to tho new ventures, and a lot of these have still to be floated. • • » Speculators are looking for a decent West Coast dredging loturn befoie plunging. As soon as this is forthcoming, there will be a wild scramble for shares. • • • Good progress is being made with the pontoons for the Ross Day Dawn Company. Messrs. Luke and Sons, the contractors, have tho greater pait of the machinery completed.

Shares in the Stafford Waimea Company have seen excellent business during the past few days, and it now turns out that the prospecting operations on the claim have been highly satisfactory. This company secured the Klondyke dredge, which is now being dismantled prior to removal to its new home. • • • The Ford's Creek dredge is expected to get into payable wash in about a week or ten days. • • • The Dart River dredge, at the head of Lake Wakatipu, was to have commenced operations on Monday. • • • The Eclipse dredge is finished, and should have been placed in commission during the week. Shares in the adjoining claim— the Waiora — are worth picking up now.