The Hawaiian gazette., 1898-04-01
A WAR RISK NOW
Some Hawaiian Sugar Insured
Against PriVateerS.
A Business of Which Little Has Been
Said-It Is a Recognized Feature.
London the Head.

That some Hawaiian sugar now in tran
sit for New York is carrying war marine
insurance will be surprise to large
portion of the population. 1t is fact.
If the strained relations between the Unit
ed States and Spain last for any time at
all, it is certain that every ounce of the
principal product of the Islands as ship
ped will be guarded by policies against
Spanish privateers.
Advices in detail concerning marine war
insurance came to several of the leading
agencies and to a number of individuals
here by the mails of the S. S. China and
S. S. Moana. 1t would occur to the ordi-
nary individual that this feature of a
conflict between nations would gradually
grow as such genuine and destructive
argument proceeded. On the contrary,
war marine insurance is an established
institution of many years standing. The
department exists as a bureau of every
great marine insurance company.
London is headquarters for war marine
insurance But if Spain and the United
States go at each other on the high seas
and possibly on land, the sub-agencies
at San Francisco, New York, Philadel-
phia, New Orleans and other American
seaboard cities, will doubtless by given
full authority. The business will be
something immense in volume. Honolulu
may have a branch. There will certainly
be important representatives here of the
great concerns interested.
AS intimated, war insurance rates are
fixed, or rather have heretofore been fixed
in London. All of the scares of late years
have been amongst countries in which the
Britains have had almost a national mo-
notary interest. Much of the diplomatic
policy of the countries at issue has been
formed in London. In the struggle that
a great many people believe is pend
ing" there will be somewhat of a diff
ference, but London capital will be alert.
1t may be that the financiers of the Unit
ed States will be unwilling to permit so
great business as war marine insurance
to go abroad when the United States is
a party to the fighting.
A good many calculations enter into
naming the figure of the premium for a
risk during a war; or when one is in pros
pect. First is considered the countries
generally. Next comes what is perhaps
really the prime consideration. This is
naval strength. If there was war between
Great Britain and the United States the
premium on American cargoes and bot
toms, would it is the opinion of a man
here who should know, be not less than
70 per cent. On the other hand the in
surance rate on a British bottom would
be merely nominal. In case of war, Brit
ish merchant ships would travel in fleets
under the convoy of ships that Britain
could easily spare from her navy after
placing a line around the United States
seaboard.
The rate at which the one lot of Ha-
waiian sugar now carrying insurance
against attack by a Spanish privateer is
one and one-half per cent. In one of the
letters from San Francisco it is stated
that this will be the rate till the verdict
of the commission investigating the
Maine disaster is made public unless in
the meantime there is a collision or new
complication of some sort. On the day
the China left the war fever was low.
The Coast agent advanced that he
thought if half million of sugar was in
sured against war loss he could get
rate of perhaps one per cent If war be
declared the rate at '1irst-from the first
day-will be between five and ten per
cent on American or Hawaiian cargoes,
which are regarded as practically the
same. In this statement is again given
the judgment of a citizen who has in
vestigated the subject very carefully and
who controls one of the largest sugar
crops of the country.
One of the gentlemen largely interested
both in plantations and shipping said last
evening on the subject of war marine