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provent the flotation of bogus companies, the competitive criticism of the other companics and their agents and 'the intelligence of the insurers will be sufficient to keep a company up to the mark and will in fact be more
conducive to financial stro-gth and stability than
government supervision and interference. But the un- doubted success of this policy in the United Kingdom must it seems to me be largely due to the existence hore of a body of publice criticism considerable number of beneficent big bodies and a vide-spread habit of reading newspapers. "Truth" and other newspapers do valuable service by cultivating a fine nose for the detection of swindles, like the recently notorious Relson's Tea Company, and we continu- ally see instances of men choorfully spending consider- able sums in hunting down a rotten institution.
4.The actual investor or insurer hardly ever sees the accounts of the companies published by the Board of
Trade, if he did he often rould re te polo tag wizar.
Business men and well-to-do insurers who go in for a
number of large policies, like Mr.Harwood Banner,M.P.,
and Sir Wm.Mather who gave evidence before the Commituee
may make careful investigation before taking out
policies; but the ordinary insurer, industrial or
otherwise, usually joins a particular company because
either a friend has done the same, or the agent is known
to him, or he has seen it well spoken of in a newspapor. What would deter him from joining a wea.. company is not the mere publication of its accounts which he would never see but his socing in a newspaper that the so and so Company is not considered to be run on round lines and that intending insurers would be well advised to
avoid