76 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. (Vou. VIII. 
The losses (not including 1904) vary from 394 per cent. of the premiums 
of the year, in 1902, to 2253, in 1877. The next highest loss was 93} per 
cent. in 1900. The striking inequality tends to prove that the Canadian 
field is not large enough to establish an average year by year. Some local 
drought, some city conflagration happens at uncertain intervals to disturb 
the regularity of business. Hence the necessity for large capitals and per- 
haps for special reserve funds, and we have seen even these impaired or 
dissipated by the adverse experience of a few years. It is indeed question- 
able if the business of all North America will make a company sure of a 
steady average, for similar financial and even meteorological conditions 
occasionally affect large areas, such as the basin of the great lakes. There 
has been an agitation in favour of municipal insurance, of which we hear 
some echoes even yet. As providing a very large capital, viz.: an appreciable 
part of the assessment of all the cities and towns entering into the business, 
it has a certain merit; as a means of reducing the premiums for insurance, 
which is the main object aimed at by its advocates, the above figures shew 
it can have none. Perhaps, if building by-laws were made stringent and 
were strictly enforced, if the insurance of buildings were made compulsory 
and confined to a certain limit, the premium being collectable with other 
taxes, there would be a profit to the department charged with the adminis- 
tration of insurance affairs, but it could not fairly be used in reduction of 
premiums for a long time because of the conflagration danger in an acute 
shape. If a municipal office were established there would be less induce- 
ment for companies to continue in business here, there would be a with- 
drawal of insurance capital and consequently even more difficulty than 
at present in keeping large stocks of goods properly ‘‘covered.”’ To extend 
municipal insurance to goods is almost an unthinkable idea, also the appli- 
cation of it to the machinery and the contents of large factories, for an essen- 
tial feature of the scheme is the assumption of the whole fire risk of every 
hazard, otherwise it is only playing at insurance, merely adding another 
to our numerous companies. The danger would be manifold, the risks 
would be too heavy even for municipal capitals available, which are far 
from being the total assessed value of property liable for taxes. Debts and 
other responsibilities must be considered, also the ability and inclination 
of the population to pay additional taxation, should a fire like that Toronto 
has this year suffered from require it, aloss officially placed at seven and 
three-quarters of millions of dollars insured, about equal to the insurance 
loss at St. John, N.B., in 1877. There would be danger from the want of 
elasticity inseparable from a bureaucracy, red-tapism annoying to the 
insured, and of the corruption which seems a necessary part of public insti- 
tutions, which would be imputed if not proved in matters of settlement. 
Municipalities have enough to do, in relation to fires, to make and enforce 
