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Show insurance companies. Mr. Ryan, without mincing word3, told the assembled as-sembled agents that state regulation of rates was bound to come; , that it was simply a waste of time to "resolute" upon the subject, and that the insurance agents and the companies should co-operate so far as possible in shaping the inevitable legislation along lines that would prove most beneficial. If this assistance was not rendered, ren-dered, rating laws and laws limiting expenses would be passed in any event, and it was far more practical, he said, to assist in forming laws than to stand back and question the sincerity of those to whom the duty is delegated. Miss Edith I. Goodspeed of Joliet, 111., the only woman member of the National Association of Local Fire Insurance Agents, advocated raising the standard of qualifications for agency work and the weeding out of incompetent agents. STATE REGULATION OF INSURANCE RATES. State regulation of fire insurance rates is now the specter that stalks abroad to worry managers of the insurance companies' combines com-bines as a result of the national convention of local insurance agents in Chicago. The managers, however, show no disposition to accept the regulation which would divide their responsibilities to the public with the public On one hand, periodically they point to the enormous enor-mous fire waste of the United States, which is some $200,000,000 a year more than it would be under European systems of fire prevention, preven-tion, and remark that the rates are proportionately higher because of this wast:. The efforts of the insurance companies to check the waste, however, have been half-hearted efforts, because the public is the loser and hasn't realized it. But state regulation, which O. B. Ryan of u.z - .' --.rtment declared to the convention to be 'inevitable," i6 a hocse of another color, for it directly affects the |