LIFE'S GREAT HAZARDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20116, 29 November 1928, Page 13

LIFE'S GREAT HAZARDS.

SOME DANGEROUS JOBS. WHAT INSURANCE RISKS SHOW. [FROM OT7E, OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY. Nov. 22. The fact, as revealed by the latest annual report of the Government Statistician, that premium income in tho insurance business has risen from £510,201 in 1922 2.3 to £1,746,934 in 1927-28, in respect to employers' liability and workers' compensation n New South .Wales, is not in itself very interesting. But behind it is the story of life's hazards in a big city like Sydney.

Tho dogmen, who, with superb calm and audacious sangfroid, thrill the "rubbernecks' on the crowded pavements as they are drawn aloft to tho tops of the- city's skyscrapers and away about at the end of giant steel ropes, are generally credited with holding down Sydney's most dangerous job. This distinction, however, taking any one big class of workers as a risk under the Workers' Compensation Act, actually belongs to the wharf la tourer.

The next most dangerous job under the A«-t is that of the muscular gentleman who stands villi pick in hand and with statuesque poise on tho top of tho city s old buildings and demolishes them with ruthless energy. The dogman, to the disappointment of an idolatrous public, comes simply under a flat rate under tho Act along with the plebeian labourer, as far as risks are, concerned. In fact, he pets only about 2s 6d a week more than tho ordinary labourer. So much for jazzing about in the air at dizzy heights with an apparent contempt of death and with a calm whic i thrills the crowds below. So much for tho debonair dogman, whoso job, after all, is not the most dangerous in Sydney.

Technically Sydney's most, dangerous job, taking workers' compensation risks, is that of aeroplane testers —the young fellows who climb into the sky to test planes before they are put into ordinary use. What, in short, aro known as the "try-out" m?n, who, as a guarantee of their work, havo to test in tho air machines which they themselves have repaired. Hut these men. numerically, and in proportion to other classes of workers, are so few as to cut little ice. and they do not, therefore enter into any basis of calculation under the Act. Several insurance authorities give pride of place to tho wharf labourers as the men with life's biggest every day hazards in Sydney; I hat is, of course, when they are not. on s l ike. Their job is regarded, from the practical actuarial standpoint, as the most dangerous because of their numerical strength as distinct from, say, tho isolated aeroplane tester, and because of the fact that these aggressive aristocrats of tho waterfront run many risks and at all hours. Another costly risk under the Act is the steeplejack, but he is the type of worker of whom one sees very little in Sydney. Another hazardous pursuit under tho Act i 3 that of the steeplechase jockey.