rate of premium. The Standard City under the schedule must have a fire record for the preceding five years of not more than $5 per $1,000 of insurance, gravity waterworks with sufficient power to throw over five-storey buildings, water pipes of not less than six inches diameter in the dwelling section and of eight inches in the mercantile section, a paid fire brigade, two steam fire engines to each square mile of compact area or one to each 10,000 of population up to 500,000, fire-alarm telegraph, efficient police, good and wide streets of which say 60 per cent. are seventy feet or more in width, a good building law well enforced and no outlying exposures to cause sweeping fires. There are other provisions but these are sufficient to show the class of city reckoned as standard. In the British tariff there is no such thing as a Standard City and no general computation of fire losses in different localities. Individual offices do keep a very close watch on the hazardous character of the various towns and counties and pay attention to the efficiency of fireextinguishing appliances within the areas, but there is no general application of the data thus acquired by all the offices combined except as regards the special and exceptional towns for which tariffs have been drawn up.

FIRE-RESISTING CONSTRUCTION.

When, however, we come to construction and consider the Standard Building we then see that the fire offices under the British tariff have given much

UNIVE

OF

RATING OF RISKS AND TARIFFS.

175

attention to this most important matter. Rules are laid down describing in detail the standard fireresisting buildings to which the most favourable terms under the various tariffs apply. These rules deal with height and cubical contents, walls and partitions, flues, openings in walls, floors, roofs, protection of structural metal work, linings and ceilings, floor openings, shafting through walls, pipes and electric conductors, and communicating compartments. As these rules are confidentialunnecessarily so, it would seem, as the more widely known they are the better for fire insurance and building generally-I must confine myself to the barest ontline of them. Walls, external or party, must be of hard incombustible materials of not less than a prescribed thickness, and party walls must extend well above the roof of adjoining buildings. Flues must be fireproof and floors, where not fireproof, must conform to definite conditions. Roofs must be entirely of incombustible materials, and metal columns, girders and so on must be protected by a fireproof covering. Unprotected metal from its liability to weaken and bend under heat and also to expand is a serious danger to buildings. Openings in walls and floors are regulated so as to minimise the setting up of strong draughts which would increase a fire. Speaking in general terms a standard fire-resisting building under the British tariff is one which is very difficult to set on fire and one which will offer as few facilities to the progress of a fire as possible should one happen to occur. It is

hardly too much to say that the fire offices, by giving favourable terms for construction designed expressly to prevent fires, have done more to reduce the fire danger in our cities than the efforts of legislators and municipal administrators during several generations. In many respects the fire offices have set a standard which even now is tardily recognised by building legislation.

By insisting upon a high standard of incombustible materials and means of construction if the lowest rates are to be obtained fire insurance companies have done much to reduce the fire hazard, but by differential rating they have done still more. It may be contended that the penalising of buildings and their contents when the best means are not taken to prevent fires has not gone far enough-the British tariff does not go so far as the American Universal Schedule-but it has probably gone as far and as fast as this conservative and illogical country can stand.

PENAL RATES FOR DANGEROUS BUILDINGS AND

APPLIANCES.

Let us now consider a tariff and observe how the system of rating adopted in this country tends to give a bonus to those owners of property who will conform with the best conditions and penalises those who will not. Under the method of discounts on normal rates, and additions to them, not only is the expense of meeting fire losses charged to property owners in some proportion to the risks incurred by

them, but also the pressure of the high rates for hazardous construction or appliances powerfully tends to compel the adoption of recognised improvements. The central fact to be recognised is that fire offices by encouraging the reduction of fire hazards by means of reduced rates are not only benefiting themselves but also are conferring a very important benefit on the whole community.

Take now the cotton mills tariff, England and Ireland. The lowest normal rate applies to standard fire-resisting buildings, and other buildings are rated on a considerably higher scale. After setting out the minimum rates there is laid down a list of additional rates in non-fireproof buildings for many things which are considered to increase the fire hazard. These are defective construction, height above four storeys, floor openings other than those allowed, methods of lighting and heating, night work, electro-motors and various processes in connection with the blowing of cotton previous to carding. These additions are made to buildings which do not come in a category of "Fireproof". Fireproof buildings or storeys have a section to themselves and the rates charged are much more favourable than those where additions have to be made on account of hazardous construction and appliances. In each of the sections applicable to buildings used for the various cotton processes we find a normal rate laid down, and then if the buildings are not "Fireproof" additional rates are chargeable for defective construction, lighting by incandescent gas,

electro-motors and so on. Buildings rated as "Fireproof" and their contents are under this tariff much more favourably treated than buildings and contents not so rated, and in addition a discount is allowed if the buildings rise above the mere description of "Fireproof" and conform with the full conditions of a standard fire-resisting building. Cotton spinners by adopting standard fire-resisting buildings are therefore at the top of the scale and pay the lowest rates, then come those whose buildings are reckoned as "Fireproof," and then in a long descending scale those whose buildings are not fireproof and who have besides methods of lighting, working, etc., which call for additional rating. I am not able from the confidential nature of tariffs-several of which by courtesy of the Fire Offices' Committee have been placed at my disposal to give more than a cursory description of the system, but I may perhaps say roughly that a cotton mill which was on the lowest plane as regards construction and appliances would be charged for fire insurance several times as much as one which could rank as a standard fire-resisting building with the best appliances. This great difference will show how powerful is the inducement for property owners to adopt only the best forms of construction and appliances.

REDUCTIONS IN RATES.

I have dealt with additional premiums and we may now look at reductions on normal rates for fire