The Hastings Standard Published Daily WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24, 1897. ENDS IN SMOKE.

Hastings Standard, Issue 484, 24 November 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24, 1897. ENDS IN SMOKE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Three millions and a half vanished in smoke ! What a loss it seems when expressed in round figures. Loudon and Melbourne at the two extrems ends of the globe, have had a slice of their finest architectural ornamentation wiped out in a single night by fire ; Great warehouses reaching skywards in their many fiats and stories and which the Yankees euphemistically term " skyscrapers " exist no more. Blackened debris and smoke begrimed and battered walls mark the spot where but a few days ago the pulsationsof commerce and of trade were strongly marked. The columns of the daily press have been lurid with the disasters occassioned by fire and it is w r ell for us that the calamity was not in our midst. We in Hastings perhaps know a little about big fires. At any rate we ought to—and we can fully appreciate the enormous loss that the fires in Melbourne and London have caused. The insurance companies will feel the stroke and if some of them do not suffer from paralysis and succumb it will be astonishing. Never perhaps since the great lire at Chicago has so much insured property been consumed by fire. Of couse not all the property destroyed could have been covered by insurance but that the bulk of it will have been well insured goes without saying. Business men invariably take the precaution of making themselves secure against loss by fire, and we may be sure that the great buildings and their contents which have now been turned into ashes were fully covered. It is a staggering blow to the underwriters, and the two great fires illustrate how hazardous it would be for the State to take up fire insurance. The great insurance companies which carry on their business in our midst do not rely upon any single locality for their business but trade in all parts of the world, and the losses made in one quarter is counterbalanced by the profits made in another. State insurance would not permit of this, for the State would not seek to go outside of the State. We fancy the London and Melbourne fires will give the quietus to those who wish the State to undertake everything from providing cradles to coffins. Municipal fire insurance will not, we think, be so strenuously urged now by the discontented few. One effect of the fire fieud's recent work will be to cause the insurance companies to raise the premiums. For underwriters have been murmuring at the low premium rates ruling, ant} al»

though much has been done by the Association of Underwriters to remedy matters tha rates are still believed to be out of proportion to the risks. Two such fires as those recorded during the week swallow up many years premiums and make heavy inroads into reserve fund?, while shareholders have the mortification of seeing their dividends vanishing in smoke.

OLD AGE PENSIONS. Thekk are some ugly rumors afloat that Mr Seddon intends to make the Old Age Pensions Bill apolitical stalking horse. This is tantamount to saying that the Premier is insincere on this great philanthropic question. The Bill introduced by the Government is not by any means a perfect one, indeed it may be said truthfully that it is crude and indigested and misses the real point of the question. The Bill in its present form would be a disgrace to the Statute Book and for the Government to insist that it shall not be amended is to deliberately court disaster. The success of any scheme of pensions must depend upon the stability of the finances, and the financial proposals of Mr Seddon's Bill are particularly stupid and unstable. It depends upon the Treasury surplus. We know surpluses are rather the exception than the rule, and although we have had surpluses during the past few years it does not necessarily follow that this will be perpetual. Everyone believes in affording some relief to the deserving poor in old age, but the measure now before the House of Representatives is a sorry specimen of constructive legislation. If the Government do not invite free discussion on so important a Bill and seek for suggestions from everywhere they will give evidence of a want of sincerity which the people will turn to account at the prcper time.