Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 11, Issue 822, 29 January 1867, Page 3

New Zealand Insueance Co.— The half-yearly report of the New Zealand Insurance Company, though showing a loss on the half-year's transaction's of £7,150 7s. 2d., is nevertheless satisfactory, for the past halfyear has not only been a most trying one to insurance companies in Auckland, but has been pre-eminently so all over the world. It was well prepared for such emergency, having a reserve fund of over £19,000, and might well have declared a dividend,, though in not doing so at present the directors have at any rate acted prudently. Should the discontinuance of incendiarism, checked by the sentence of death passed on Elcock, and the committal of Howe, remain as now, the profits on the next half-year will not only pay a double dividend, but pull up the reserve fund to its previous amount. The career of the New Zealand Insurance Company has been a most fortunate one, and it can well afford to suffer this trifling drawback. During the seven years that it has been in existence its profits have been so large as to enable it to capitalise a sum of over £9000 per annum, besides paying a dividend of ten per cent., not only on the paid-up capital of its shareholders, but also upon the 'sum capitalised and placed to their individual credit. And here we would draw the attention of the public generally to the duty of supporting local institutions of this nature. The money thus capitalised in seven years, a sum of between £60,000 and £70,000, has not been taken out of the colony, but remains here, as does also the interest paid to shareholders. Had there been no local institution to take this money it would have gone to some foreign office, and have been lost to the colony. . It is a common thing to hear people say, that the colony gains by the inhabitants insuring in foreign companies, for that when fires occur, foreign capital is drawn upon to make good the loss. This argument would hold good if insurance companies, carried on business for the purpose of making losses, and though there may be exceptional instances, it may be taken for granted that if the premiums, which go out of the colony, were not greater than the money paid in cases of loss, which comes into the colony, they would cease to carry on business with us. It is, therefore, clearly to the common interest to do business with local institutions, and thus retain the capital in the country instead of sending it away. — Neio Zealand Herald, Jan. 17.

The East Coast Titles Investigation Act finds great favour at the hands of the New Zealand Herald. The editor says, in the issue of 22nd inst., — " This Act— we published it on Thursday last, and a most necessary and judicious act it is — has been passed to prevent an injury being done to the colony by the purchase by private individuals of land held wholly or in part by rebel natives, land which in due course must become colonial property, and it is framed only so as to interfere with those who attempt to inflict such wrong upon the colony, that is, the public at large. The Cross, therefore, in complaining that the Act presses on Messrs. Brown and Campbell, puts them in the class of those to whom the Act is intended, to be applied, and so admits the injustice of Messrs. Brown and Campbell's claim. Indeed, whatever it may say to the contrary, as regards the disloyalty of the natives from whom Messrs. Brown and Campbell sought to purchase this block of land, the fact is put on record by the Cross itself that the Act interfered with their purchase. Now, as the Act can only interfere where the purchase is sought to be made from disloyal natives, the land sought to be purchased by Messrs. Brown and Campbell must consequently have been held wholly or in part by rebels. Had it indeed been otherwise, Messrs. Brown and Campbell could have gone on with their purchase in spite of the Act, the Government Agent, or any one else. The Act is but a reproduction of the " New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863." It applies to the rebel land-holders of the East Coast the same measure of confiscation which our contemporary so much applauded when applied to the rebel land-holders of the Waikato."

Native Swelldom. — Since the payment of the Manawatu purchase, a number of our Maori friends have come out strong in the way of swelldom. One chief, who has invested in a line trap, was seen the other day with a silver-mounted whip getting into his vehicle and driving a little bit, then getting out and walking — not sure which was the most correct card, but as one or both were equally material or immaterial, he appeared evidently determined to do both. He was arrayed in a suit of clothes which would have done no discredit to Beau Brummcl, with a pair of slippers tipped with fur, and (there is always some incongruity about a Maori's dress, try it as he may) a cap braided with tarnished gold kce. A large amount of money has been spent in rings, chains, &c, much of them, we fear, the merest Brummagem. — Wait' ganui Chronicle, Jan. 17.