GOVERNMENT INSURANCES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 746, 18 June 1886, Page 20

GOVERNMENT INSURANCES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND ML Sir, ,—Your correspondent, holder,” has struck the keynote of what is in the minds of many other policyholders, and that is the desire to see no intrusion whatever of party political conflict which has distinguished the governing body in the immediate past. Ihe inklings of what has taken place on the Board have excited the indignation and scorn of most policyholders. If, then, purer administration be the chief thing wished for, I am quite in accord with your correspondent m believing th j merging the Association’s affairs into those post office would secure that result. It might be stated as an axiom that amalgamation is economy. We do not, perhaps, realise to what expansion the post office is capable of stretching. Each year develops farther beneficial uses to which we can put it ; and I think a Department which has under its control a system of banking, note circulation, money-orders, telegraphs, &c would not find the addition of insurance to affect its operations very materially in the aggregate—at all events not so far as to revolutionise the whole system. As “ Policyholder ” points put, we have a precedent in England; we have also the example of Victoria before us In all that has been written on the subject of Government insurance, one important thing has not been touched upon, and that is the departure from the first principles of insurance by Government aid, of applying profits to the reduction of premiums ; whereas against that we have bonus additions, and at one time rumors of increased rates. Have we yet had any satisfactory explanation of the necessity for such departure ? It cannot be doubted that the accumulation of profits offers great temptation to increased expenditure by an office or staff, salaries, buildings, &c., but lowering the premiums would offer no such temptation. Let us, at all events, endeavor to obtain a purer system of control in future by the elimination of everything political, and to obtain also more economical management—a very high consideration—by using all profits for the reduction of premiums, whic will be one of many means to that end. —I am, &c., _ Another Policyholder.