THE FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES' NEW IMPOST.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2344, 27 June 1868, Page 2

THE FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES' NEW IMPOST.

TO THE EDITOB OP THE LYTTELTON TIMES. Sir,—Whenever a large body of persons, I engaged in any particular occupation, combine together to raise prices upon the publicbecome in fact Trades Unionists, revivors of old monopolies, after the d*ys oil reasonable competition have been reached—the public, in self defence, have every right to enter into combination, either en masse, or in separate bodies, against the Unionists. The Fire Insurance Companies have selected a most inauspicious time for imposing a new tax, or tariff as they please to call it. When every one is pressed and squeezed from all quarters, by waning trade, diminished incomes, and increased government taxation, the addition of however slight a tax on the prudent and economical, and of this number are those who insure themselves habitually against loss by fire, is certain to be resisted. Then follows, the enquiry, foolishly provoked by the monopolists—is there any fair reason for the new burden they try to impoie ? Have

fires been so numerous of late ? Have dangerous buildings increased? Are the fire risks heavier than of old? Have prices risen generally ? Certainly nothing of the kind can be asserted now. The Are risks, in Christehurch at least, are less than ever they were, under a new law which provides for the increase in stone buildings, besides those which have in the last two years been erected in considerable numbers, thus isolating large blocks of wooden buildings, formerly, all likely to be destroyed en bloc, if any one of them should take fire. Is water less sctrce than of old ? Are the fire engines and brigades less effective ? Assuredly not. Then, Sir, why this combined grasping at increased profits with diminished risks and rapidly widening field of operations? The answer is plain. We are in the hands of a horde of foreign companies, whose directory abroad look solely to shewirg a large balance sheet to their proprietors. If this place will support eight or ten foreign companies, taking income away from us for foreign shareholders to spend, it will support a local company equally well whose profits will go to increase the wealth of the colonists and the colony. It is distinctly traceable to the arrival of a foreign manager from across the water that we date this attempt at forming a fire insurance trades union in Christehurch. We shall he a mean-spirited lot if we put up with this ,l unholy alliance" very long. I for one, Sir, have ceased to renew my policy. I become now my own insurer, and take extra precautions against fire, till I can obtain a policy upon fair terms, Many like myself have dropped their renewals. That to begin with shews the absurdity of the attempt to force an additional fire tax out of a public who have of late done so much towards diminishing the risk of the insurance companies by their Are brigade organisation. The next step is to pitch overboard these unionists altogether. The first plan is for a large body of us to combine at once and guarantee for a fixed term all our business to the first respectable Australian company willing to open an agency here. The second and best plan is to form a local mutual self-iisurauce company of our own. A third will be to send home to London, and by combining, as a city, 1 to give all our business to one new company i —we could in three days form a substantial ; one in London, where money is begging at Ito 2 per cent. A dozen of us could soon . form a nucleus for arranging a plan of this > kind; and eveu if the present unionists—- ! when they shall, too late, perceive their folly i in being led by the nose by " the man from [ over the water"—should revert to the old or i a lower tariff, they will find their clientelle , too much disgusted with a combination antei gonistic to the times and the spirit of trade, ever to be willing to patronise them again, Your obedient servant, ! PHCENIX.