STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16168, 19 February 1913, Page 8

STATE FIRE INSURANCE.

The Hon F. M. B. Fisher, the Minister in Charge of the State Fire Insurance Department, has furnished the Wellington newspapers with very encouraging reports of tho growth of the Department's business. Incidentally he claims that the large increase in the profits which has taken place during the last six months is proof that the Reformers and not tho Liberals are the real friends of State enterprise. The claim is a little far-fetched, as some of the Minister's other claims are, but every public-spirited individual in the country will rejoice at tho undoubted evidence of progress. The net income of the Department in 1910 was £41,787, in 1911 £48,931 and in 1912 £56,315. Tho pre ."its showed an even more satisfactory .improvement. In 1910 they were £SI37, in 1911 £5391 and in 1912 £14,023. During the three years the working expenses decreased from 28.3 per cent of the income to 26.7 per cent, and with the growth of business this decrease, of course, will continue. It is not very easy for the non-party layman to see how the figures bear witness to tho greater enterprise of the Reformers, but it is gratifying to find Mr Fisher, freed from the restraining influence of the Minister of Finance, and careless of tho frowns of his chief, paying such unstinted tribute to the wisdom of the statesman who established the Department.