The Government Insurance Department.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1791, 5 February 1886, Page 2

The Government Insurance Department.

Durinu the last three years we have repeatedly exposed and denounced the mismanagement, extravagance and jobbery which

have prevailed in the Government Life Insurance Department. The existing state o( things is now worse than eyer. The policyholders desired that they should possess k ceitain amount of control in the administration of this department. Vogel got an Act passed, which it was as ported would give the policy holders the control they asked for, by allowing them to elect representatives as members of the Central Managing Board. But the whole thing vftia simply a piece of ingenious humbug. As events have ftirned out, the Central Board of Management is simply a sort of machine which can be worked by Vogel and his nominees who do just as they like and l»ve everything their own way. That being the case, Vogel has just gone on perpetrating worse jobs than ever. He and his nominees have arranged for 1 the erection of enormously costly buildings as offices in Wellington, while they have purchased unsuitable buildings iu Cbiistchurch and elsewhere at tremendous prices, thus squandering the money of the policy holders in the most lavish and reckless manner. Then the recent appointment of Mr Henry Driver to take charge of the department at Dunedin at a salary and commission running up to £IOOO a year, was a most audacious and flagran tjob. Mr Driver has been a sheep and cattle salesman and possesses no knowledge whatever of insurance business. But Mr Driver is a good electioneering agent and has a certain amount of political influence, while he is also the special friend of Vogel, so he was pitchforked into a lucrative billet over the heads of experienced officers of long service. This latest job has roused a feeling of indignation amongst the policy holders in every part of the colony, and a whole series of meetings have been held to denounce and condemn the objectionable appointment. Vogel, in a letter to the New Zealand Herald, has tried to explain his conduct and justify the action of himself and his abettors in this business, hut utterly fails in the attempt. Curiously enough, when some years back Mr David Mitchell Luckie was placed at the head of the Government Insurance Department, there was not very much outcry, though that job was even a worse one than the appointment of Mr Driver. However, the policy holders have by this time become alarmed, and so they uplift their voices in vigorous protest and condemnation. Verily, the Government Life Insurance Department is in a bad way. It is a perfect hotbed of mismanagement, corruption, and jobbery. The great majority of the public have entirely lost confidence in the Department, and there is every prospect that its business will dwindle down to nothing. The Government have no business to dabble in Life Insurance business at all. With regard to the present Department, the best tning the Government can do is to transfer its business to some private insurance institution of acknowledged sterling and unquestionable mohey resources, and so come out of an enterprise on which they ought never to have entered.