294 



The Reviei^ of Reviews. 



March $0, 1906 



STATE INSURANCE IN NEW ZEALAND. 



LIFE. 



Under this heading Mr. W. P. Reeves, High 

 Commissioner of New Zealand, writes in the Nor//i 

 American Review. He recalls how the Government 

 Life Insurance Office was established in 1870, at a 

 time of Colonial depression. In four years' time 

 considerable profits had accrued. The sum assured 

 m the office rose from ^200,000 in the first year 

 to more than ten million and a-quarter at the end of 

 1904. The policies numbered 44,194. Private com- 

 petition is not excluded. The Government Office 

 does no more than nearly half the life insurance of 

 the Colony. The office is a department of the 

 public service, managed by an officer called the 

 Commissioner, who is a Civil Servant. The office 

 is conducted virtually as an ordinan,' private in- 

 suraiice association. It pays land tax and income 

 tax, and contributes ;^9000 a year to the Revenue. 

 The assets of the office at the end of 1904 amounted 

 to ;^3,76i,ooo. Of this amount not eighteen per 

 cent, has been borrowed by the New Zealand 

 Treasury. 



ACCIDENT. 



The series of laws of compensation to workmen 

 passed between 189 1-9 led the employers to pro- 

 tect themselves by means of insurance, and the 

 high rates charged by private companies led the 

 Government to establish a State Accident Insurance 

 Office in 1899. The premiums received have risen to 

 about _;^24,ooo a year, and have so far exceeded 

 the claims as to allow of an accumulation of 



;£l 4,600. 



FIRE. 



The high profits of the private fire insurance com- 

 panies, and the high charges in the country dis- 

 tricts, led the Seddon Government to add fire in- 

 surance to its other responsibilities in 1903. The 

 risks accepted during the first nine months reached 

 a total of over two millions and a-half. The pre- 

 miums had risen to about ;,^2ooo a month, and the 

 losses to about ^1200 a month. The insurance 

 companies are waging war against it by every means 

 in their power. But Mr. Reeves does not think 

 that they will succeed in checking it. 



The work of the telephone girl, as described by 

 G. H. Saunders in the Young Woman, is said to 

 exercise a kind of fascination over the operators. 

 A proof of this is the number of girls w^ho return 

 to the exchanges after leaving to take up duties of 

 other kinds. Of several thousands of telephone 

 operators there are very few who would care to take 

 up any other business. The writer mentions the 

 fact that there are about thirty subscribers who are 

 called regularly every morning by the telephone 

 instead of bv an alarm clock. 



THE GENESIS OF THE CURLING STONE. 



In C. B. Fry's for February a ver)' interesting 

 account is given of the making of curling stones. 

 The famous Ailsa Craig is the only quarrj' for curl- 

 ing stones. The stone is a kind of granite, very 

 hard and difficult to cut. It is found in three 

 colours — red hone, blue hone, and common Ailsa. 

 The rough cubial blocks are conveyed by boat to 

 the factory, where the)- are chipped with hammer 

 and chisel into a rough semblance of a curling 

 stone. It takes a good workman a whole day to 

 rough out one pair of stones. The stone is then 

 put an a huge turning lathe revolving at a great 

 speed, in which a pair of circular cutters give the 

 stone its final shape. It is then put to the slowly 

 moving grindstone, which averages two tons, the 

 curling stone being made to revolve at a very high 

 rate. In the polishing room the stone is made to 

 revolve in touch first with Avrshire blue sandstone, 

 then with water or Ayr stone. No more is done to 

 the dull side, but the other side, known as the 

 ■ keen " side, is polished with i)utty powder. The 

 border is '' belted on with hammer and chisel," the 

 handles are fitted, and then they are ready for use. 

 According to destination, they are variously shaped ; 

 Canada, Lanarkshire, the coast and the South have 

 each preferences for different shapes. The weight 

 similarly differs. At home the stone runs from 32 

 to 40 lbs. ; in Canada from 37 to 44 lbs. The 

 maximum size is thirtv-six inches in circumference. 



1 



Ignorance in Public Libraries. 



Mr. W. H. Harwoitd, in the JVcsiminstcr Review, 

 conuiients on the vast preponderance of fiction over 

 all other issues of books in the annual reports of 

 public libraries. In his paper on " Free Libraries 

 and Fiction," he says this is largely because new 

 libraries must justify their existence, and the easiest 

 way to do this is to issue as many books as pos- 

 sible ; hence large purchases of fiction. The com- 

 mittees managing free libraries, moreover, are ap- 

 pointed by people who look for any qualifications 

 rather than literarv taste and capacit)". Men are 

 chosen because they are this or that, anything but 

 because they are literarv. and well read. Many of 

 the novels included, bought with public money, are 

 skimmed rather than read, and if they do no harm 

 can at least do no good to their readers. A little 

 less sp>ent on novels and a little more on a higher 

 class of library assistant, says Mr. Harwood, and 

 enforces his plea bv the following anecdote : — 



'• Have you a book called ' Esmond,' by a man named 

 Thackeray?" asked a borrower at a public library not 

 long ago. 



" No, I think not, for I have never heard of either the 

 man or the book before," was the answer of the assistant- 

 in-charge. "Have you. sir?" he added, turning to a by- 

 stander, who responded " Yes," giving the number of the 

 book. One might suppose that the assistant in this case 

 was a raw lad freeh from a board school, and would not 

 imagine that this was how far he had got after " several 

 years' experience of library work." 



