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Star (Christchurch), Issue 6131, 18 March 1898, Page 4

A common objection to state fire State or municipal fire iniksvbance. snrance, is that in the event of heavy losses, some municipalities would be ruined and the people would rebel against the taxation required to make up the fire premiums. Those who argue in this way, ignore the fact that under the existing system of insurance by. private companies, it is the, community in every case that bears the loss, in addition to finding the cost of managing all the .different companies and also providing ''the dividends to shareholders. It has been pointed out by a correspondent—of the -New Zealand Times that, economically speaking, the State as a whole would be neither richer nor poorer — even if a whole city were burnt down at one sweep — whether the buildings were insured by private companies, by the State, or not insured at all. In each case the wealth necessary to rebuild the city would have to come out of the existing fund of capital, and the new city would be created by labour. The same correspondent, a Mr Longdill, outlines a scheme of State fire insurance which, though crude and imperfect, may fairly claim consideration. He says that every owner of- house property should — when a State system of fire insurance has become established —be compelled to send in an estimate of the value of his biiilding, and that after revaluation the building should be insured by the State to, say, three-quarters the value of the property. In consideration of this the owner would be required to pay an annual | rate to the State according to the value i of the property, the rate per .£IOO being divided into several classes, as now, according to the kind of building insured. These rates would, of . course, be much lower than the rate at present charged by private companies. The whole business of collecting the rates and paying losses could be most economically conducted as a branch of the postmasters' duties, it is not clear that such simple machinery would suffice for a great State Department dealing with the insurance of many millions of pounds' worth of property ; but the scheme, at any rate, serves to suggest that the business is not so risky, complicated and occult as some high priests of insurance would have the people to believe.