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SHIPPING AND INSURANCE.
14
(Daily Press, 9th January.) When a journal of the status and dignity of the London Times makes use of such an adjective as rotten," we may safely con- elude that the thing so described is in a very bad condition indeed. It is the con- dition of the marine insurance market at
£3
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
་་
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
have been in insurances of steamers for twelve months at fixed premiums "time risks," which showed an unprecedented
rot.'
Our authority mentions "the ex- perience of one of the north-eastern mutual insurance clubs for the year to February, 1904, which shows that the tramp steamers eutered in the club cost for insurance £9 68. per cent. on a valuation of £10 a tun. Home which the commercial supplement of Tramp steamers of about the same class are the Times states to be "rotten," aud its now being written in London on the 1905 correspondent declares the use of the word account at £8 or less per cent. on a valua- to be fully justified in that connection at tion of £8 a ton. Here is a reduction in the end of the year just over. Worse still, premium and value together of no less than lie writes hopelessly of any immediate pros-31 per cent. This is in fact quite a mode- pect of improvement. The depression in rate example, and it would be easy to give the shipping trade is severe, he reports, and instances of reductions of nearly 50 per values have seriously declined. "There is cent. Underwriters grumble and groan no nargin on earnings to allow shipowners daily; they resent the way in which business to pay adequate insurance premiums, and properly applicable to 1905 is being pushed they are obliged to put forward their vessels forward now in order to secure the advantages on the depreciated values instead of on the for shipowners of a “rotten" market, but they much higher values of two or three years are between the millstones of economic ago." In view of the Board of Trade forces." The only business in which the iu- returns, showing still a very respectable surance people have distinctly scored has been volume of export and import trades, we the war risks, for captures and accidents might be tempted to ascribe these pessimis- were, thanks to the Japanese navy, not so tic reports to the tendency of those in a numerous as to seriously reduce the hand- business to exaggerate its defects and to some returns drawn from scared shippers. belittle its advantages; but it is explained that the margins of profit have been low, especially in the case of heavy freight, and underwriters have been continually under (Daily Press, 10th January.) pressure to undertake greater risks without Our correspondent "W. D." whose letter a corresponding increase of premium. The appeared in yesterday's paper, holds, in secret is that there are far too many at the common with a great many humane folk, game. The supply of insurance facilities, the opinion that capital punishment is a we are told, is greater than the demand. relic of barbarism. He says it ought to be The London market can cover more thau superseded "by something more humane, a million sterling on a first-class risk, and more philosophic, more just." Some de- everybody likes first-class risks. But most finition becomes necessary before we can We of these risks do not exceed £100,000, and appreciate the value of his argument. rarely reach £500,000. On nearly every must know what he means by humanity, good risk placed in Loudon some under- whether he perceives it as a sentiment of writers have to go short, and their inevit-pity for an individual in trouble, or as a able willingness to cut rates in order to get love of humanity in the aggregate. We must see why and where he discovers the unphilosophic side of capital punishment. and we must consider whether his con- ception of justice is or is not a true one. He adopts the Socratic method of trans. mitting his opinion that capital punishment is an act of revenge, and probably will not be satisfied with a negative answer to his question. Nevertheless, his opinion that the object of punishing a murderer is venge is quite untenable. A vital condition attached to an individual's permission to associate with his fellows is that he must respect the sanctity of their lives. such an understanding, man's gregarious instinct could not be gratified. He would have to live, as it were, with his back to the tree, and regard everyone coming into view as a possible enemy. In the earlier communities, a killer was regarded as a common dauger, and suppressed as such, for the good of the community. The simple philosophy of those days was that a dead killer would kill no more. In later times, the view of capital punishment has been that it deters, not only the oue put out of mischief, but all others beholding his fate. Thus, if the right humano feeling be thit entertained for humanity at large, and if only two potential murderers te deterred by the fate of one, an execution is not only a bumane punishment, but is ultimately an economiser of lives. This, it seems to us, is also sufficiently philosophic to dispose of our correspondent's second objection.
a share in business results in a continuous
**
and progressive reduction, until a point is reached which is well below the margin of safety.' That point, says our contemporary, has now been reached in some important classes of marine insurance. low different all this to the state of things on the China coast. Every local corporation engaged in this business is doing remark ably well. That jealousy to which allusion has been made, prompting a toning down of good reports and the emphasising of bad, prevents us from mentio..ing particular cases, or giving figures to prove how vastly happier are our local underwriters than their metropolitan prototypes. Rates are, however, admittedly very high, a fact which affords some explanation of the way in which Chinese shipowners are conducting their bu iness. Many of the Chinese steamers are not insured at all; and so long as their luck remains good, and no lesses come to punish their temerity, they are en- abled to compete with foreign shippers on
re-
Without
[January 14, 1905. not be just. The pious CRABE says that the act of avenging, though attended with the infliction of pain, is oftentimes an act of humanity, and always an act of justice. The principle of equality enters into all definitions of fustice.
A just punishment is one that fits the crime. Without considering the possibility that many men would rather die than undergo penal servitude, we have to consider if twenty years of liberty taken away is a fair price for a whole life cut off. In the case which has given rise to this discussion, one human creature was robbed of probably fifty or sixty years of existence. So much for the justice of it.
Our correspondent is, we admit, in the fashion when he attributes all crime to ignorance, disease, or insanity; but we can- not help thinking it a dangerous doctrine to preach. There is a temptation to gravé laxity in these pampered days when we are taught to disguise offences with euphemistic names, when a thief is no longer a thief, but a kleptomaniac; and when a brutal murderer is said to be suffering from a painful attack of homicidal mania. ance is a fine thing, but we should not be expected to tolerate evil. Every young
Toler.
rascal with sufficient brains or education to think of it, when his failure to curb his appetite or passion becomes patent, and incurs the censure of those about him, promptly pleads heredity or environment. The drunkard is offended by his true designation. He has, poor fellow, had the misfortune to inherit dipsomaniacal ten- dencies. There is, no doubt, something in it; but we no longer know where we stand, as we once did. Once upon a time,
"He who took what wasn't his'n
When he was cotched was took to prison." Now, the correct thing is to seek for a cause of his naughtiness among what "W. D.” calls "the thousand and one impacts of environment," to prate of his necessities, to blame Government for omitting to provide him with a sinecure that would have kept him out of temptation; and finally to con- fine him temporarily as a first or second Sometimes he his class misdemeanant.
the impudence to write a book about his experiences, and incidentally to criticise prison
administration, while a silly, novelty-hungry society, which has lost its sense of proportion, foolishly applauds. The humane, or those who seem to claim a monopoly of the humane feelings, have done their best to By- abolish the birch rod and the "cat."
and-bye, when they have abolished all punishment, we shall perhaps revert to old- fashioned ways, if we be not all murdered in our beds meanwhile. It is very pretty to say, as "W. D." does, that "the seed of human nature is good." If we were agreed as to what is meant by that, we should pro- bably concur; but there used to be a well- understood phrase having reference to a certain outcrop of human nature known as
terms distinctly unfavourable to the latter.
the "old Adam," and this thing needs re- The natural assumption would be that the
pressing still. Experience has not shown shipping depression at Home, which helped
that the new-fangled, pseudo-scientific diag to establish the insurance rates on such a
uosis of crime has helped to repress it. It more favourable basis for the shippers,
is rather hard that we, as well as His would be cured or partly cured by the
Excellency the Governor, should be under- depression it had so conveyed to the related
stood to lack the milk of hun an kindness simply because we do not permit our natural business; but the expert idea appears to be that under such conditions a sound insurance
sentiments to blind us to the heinousness of protection cannot exist, and that without it
certain kinds of behaviour; but it is useless As t to complain. Humane people are prone to. the trade cannot recover. It is obvious that while the underwriters are obtaining the justice of it, there can be no question,judge severely, it seems. Since, however, "W. D." has called our attention to the the smallest of profits, or none at all, if we set aside W. D.'s" word " revenge they will be the more tempted to dis- as improper. Capital punishment is an act simile of the gardener and the tree, as particularly true in its bearing upon the pute their liabilities when claims are of avenging, not of revenging. The dis- made, and their legal advisers hold out tinction is that one is an act of justice, the present case," we do not feel any the less any hope of success. The greatest failures other a private reprisal which may or may justified in the painful view we felt it our
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