COMMERCIAL.

Evening Star, Issue 12760, 13 March 1906, Page 6

COMMERCIAL.

At tho second annual meeting of shareholders of .the Provident Life Assurance Company, held yesterd?- the annual report (which was adopted) stated that the premiums received ' during the vea.r amounted to £15,118 8s Bd. The total cJa.imtJ, incrnding surrenders, amounted to dred and six new policies were introduced during_ the year for the assurance of £.125.374 6s 6d. The cost of collection of premiums amounted to £2,117 19s 2d, or 14.01 per cent. The total expenses of management amounted to £2,455 17e lid, or 16.24 per cent,. The whole of the new business expense account, for tho current year was written off. also the Gum of £lßl 10s 6d off the stationery and office furniture aeeount. The funds amounted to £18,263 2s 3d, and the assurance fund now stood at £13,018 2s 3d, tho latter showing an increase of 31.02 per cent. The directors recommended payment of interest by way of dividend at the rate of 5 per cent, upon the paid-up capital of the company. A farmer near Temuka declares that a paddock of wheat, from the same ground as a patch of badly-blighted potatoes last year, is becoming infected with blight. The New Zealand Coal and Oil Company's tender for the. supply of screened Kaitangata coal on the Dunedirt-Gare section of the railways, at 8s 6d per ton. has been accepted. BREACH OF THE FERTILISERS ACT. At tho Auckland Police Court yesterday John Schjsehka, an Auckland "resideat, was charged with having committed breaches of the Fertilisers Act. He pleaded guilty to having, about Octol>er last, caused seventeen packages to be filled with fertiliser materially at variance with the particulars registered in connection with the hrand upon the packages, and also admitted the ch"«rge of having failed to deliver to a purchaser of artificial manure an invoice denoting ite onality. Schischka pleaded not guilty to an indictable charge: that he frandnlently imitated an authorised trade mark of the Gisbome Sheepfarmers' Frozen Meat Company upon bags containing fertiliser. He was committed for trial on the last-named charge, hail being allowed himself in £4OO. and two sureties of £2OO each. ' To-day he was fined £2 and costs for minor breaches of the Act.