8        REkPORT OF T"HE COMMISSIONER OF I SURANXC.
SAVING BY CONSOLIDATION WOULD GIVE GREATER EFFICIENCY.
It is unfortunate that the one respect in which the reconmmen-
dations of the investigating Committee failed of enactment is that
which most immediately affects the problem of inspection. The
committee recommended a consolidation of the duties of the
state oil inspector with those of the state fire marshal. This
wvouldI have done away with a. large amount of duplication in
travel and salaries, and placed at the disposal of the state fire
marshal a sufficient foree to have given efficient aid to the fire
departraents in the organization of' the work of inspection, and al-
so have enabled the state to print and furnish, without expense
to the local departments, the necessary blanks and supplies for
the work.
BENEFITS TO CITIES.
Ordinarily no increase in the fire, department force will be re;-
quired, but where it, mav be, necessary, no city or village can ex-
pend money to better purposes. The property loss in some of
the principal cities of the state for 1912, and the loss per capita
on the amount of a 50 percent saving, is as shown in the follow-
ing tfiable:
city.             Property  Loss per  5O%
City,                 loss.   capita.  savins.
Green Baa....................................... $23,718 00  $0 88  $11,859
00
La Crsse.       ..                  20,209 00   96     14,604 50
Itachie .................5...... ........  65,790 00  1 57  32,895 00
Sheboygan.                         25,258 00     90    12,629 00
M ilwaukee-.....................................  834,649 00  2  11  417,324
TO
INStJRANCE AND FIRE PREVENTION SERVICE.
The pIraetice of thle New England factory mutuals, and more
receei1l v ot associations of stoek companies, in periodical inspec-
tions Lv trained engineers, shows in a strikingr way what may be
accomnplished both in the reduction of the losses and in the educa-
tion of the property owner to a support of fire prevention work.