billion mark was reached in 1919; and this had been doubled by 1925. The growth, indeed, is a matter of geometric rather than arithmetic progression. One Canadian life company whose total had passed $1,000,000,000, anticipated with confidence that this would be doubled in the following four years-that is would add $1,000,000,000-and that this figure of $2,000,000,000 would be increased by a similar amount, and become $4,000,000,000 in the following four or five years—the rate of growth thus being doubled. Canadian, British and Foreign Life Companies. Canadian life companies in 1926 continued to maintain their leadership over British and Foreign competitors in the writing of business in this country. Back in 1875 Canadian companies' total was less than half that of foreign companies, and little more than that of British companies, but the gain to an outstanding supremacy had been rapid and pronounced. In 1924 Canadian companies wrote $391,000,000 against $199,000,000 by foreign companies; in 1925, Canadian companies' total was $443,000,000 as against $243,000,000, while in 1926 the Canadian total was $515,000,000, up $72,000,000, as against a gain of $16,000,000 by foreign companies to $266,000,000. Taking insurance in force the total for Canadian companies in 1925 was $2,672,989,676 as against $1,377,464,924 for foreign companies. The totals for 1926 were: Canadian companies, $2,979,652,730, compared with $1,377,064,924 for foreign organizations. The following tables indicate the marked progress of the Canadian companies over their competitors, both in new business for the year, and total insurance in force : Other comparisons work out thus for the five years, 1922-26 1,518,874,230 1,377,464,924 Ratio Lapsed or Surr'd to New Policies One of the Foreign Business of Canadian Companies. features of the business of Canadian life companies is the rapid increase in business written in outside countries. In 1925 this was close to one-half the total written by these companies in Canada, and in 1926 it had passed the half-way mark, comparing as $277,000,000 to $515,000,000. By 1927 the total insurance carried by Canadian companies outside was not quite one-half that of domestic assurances in force ($1,319,013,311 to $2,979,652,730), but it was rapidly reaching this point. In the case of some Canadian companies foreign business had outstripped domestic. The Sun Life in 1926 showed $153,857,606 of foreign to $67,092,643 of Canadian, and out of its total in force, $1,166,292,676, nearly two-thirds, or $764,159,889 was foreign, and $402,132,787 domestic. The Canada Life wrote $37,474,169 of ordinary business in Canada, and $49,063,053 outside, and of its total in force of ordinary, $277,226,200 was domestic, and $246,290,505 foreign. The total amount of business written by Canadian companies, and by British and Foreign companies in Canada in 1926 was $909,304,187, as compared with $807,079,035 in 1925. The grand totals for the three groups for the year, and the assurances in force, compare as follows: Fire Insurance in Canada. Ratio of fire losses to premiums steadily declined since 1922, and the 1926 figure of 49.2 was well below the 53.0 of 1925; 58.8 of 1924, 63.52 of 1923, and the high of 68.92 per cent. established in 1922. The total amount of risk in Canada for all companies established a new record, exceeding $8,000,000,000, up nearly $500,000,000 over 1925, as the following comparisons show : During 1922-1926 fire insurance compared thus along various lines: $8,045,437,096 $25,717,243 49.60 26,943,089 52.82 Fraternal Insurance. The chief event among fraternal societies in 1926 was the absorption of the Canadian Order of Home Circle by the Independent Order of Foresters, which went into effect on Sept. 1st. The Home Circle had a membership at the time of 4,500, making the total after the consolidation, 160,000. The Home Circle's assets were valued at $1,500,000, bringing the total for the I.O.F. to $40,000,000, including surplus and special reserve of $2,000,000. The total number of Courts in Canada was 3,700. This amalgamation followed closely on the taking over of the Ancient Order of United Workmen by the I. O. F. The Report of the I. O. F. for 1926 showed insurance in force of $149,714,086, an increase of about $587,000. The Company paid out to members and their beneficiaries $3,585,140. Two-thirds of the Order's business was carried on out side of Canada. Insurance Incidents. The Sun Life Assurance Co. absorbed the Cleveland Life Insurance Company, with head office in Cleveland, Ohio. This Company had assets of nearly $7,000,000, and insurance in force of $38,000,000. This step marked further progress in the expansion of the Sun Life in the United States. A licence was granted for it to transact business in the State of Massachusetts. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company gave the placing of $130,000,000 of fire insurance to Willis Faber & Co., generally regarded as the largest insurance account in Canada. At the 1926 Session of the Ontario Legislature an amendment was made to The Ontario Insurance Act, 1924, by which trade unions having assurance or benefit funds for the benefit of their own members exclusively, were not required or entitled to be licensed as insurers. The Ninth Annual Conference of the Association of Superintendents of Insurance of the Provinces of Canada was held in Victoria from Sept. 21 to 25, 1926. At the Sixth Annual Convention of the Ontario Fire and Casualty Insurance Agents' Association in October, 1926, R. Leighton Foster, Superintendent of Insurance for Ontario, declared that within the previous year automobile insurance rates had been thoroughly purged from unfair discrimination. At the close of 1926, H. C. Hatch, President of the Gooderham and Worts distillery, was insured for exactly $1,000,000 on behalf of the Company, in the Mutual Life of Canada, and at the same time Mr. Hatch took out a policy of $200,000 in the Imperial Life. According to the first statement issued by the T. Eaton Life Insurance Co. early in 1927, covering the first year of offering insurance to the public in addition to its own employees, the total amount written (in 1926) was $3,121,823, bringing the total amount in force to $9,298,991. After a struggle that lasted for several weeks during the 1927 Session, a private Bill introduced into Parliament on behalf of the Sun Life Assurance Co. was withdrawn. The Bill was intended to clear up the question as to whether the Company could issue additional capital stock making a total of $4,000,000, provided this was not issued as a stock dividend or a bonus. The Dominion Superintendent of Insurance, G. D. Finlayson, claimed that the Company's authorized capital was only $2,000,000, on the ground that the balance had been authorized for casualty business, which department had been dropped. Other clauses in the Bill provided for the split in the stock ten for one, and that at least two-thirds the shareholders must be British subjects and domiciled in Canada. It was claimed that an attempt had been made to secure control in the United States, and bidding for the Company's stock rose as high as $1,600 a share. Arrangements were made for re-entry of the Canada Life Assurance Company into New York State. By the beginning of 1927, T. B. Macaulay, President of the Sun Life Assurance Company, had completed 50 years with that organization. The Royal Bank of Canada in 1926 took out a policy of $7,000,000 with the Sun Life, said to be the largest policy ever written in Canada. A judgment was rendered by Chief Justice Meredith on April 7, 1927, at Osgoode Hall, declaring that while it was not a crime to take one's own life, in such a case insurance could not be collected. The judgment arose out of the claim for $25,000 insurance by relatives of the late William Raymond Moor, president of the Lang Shirt Company, whose death took place on Dec. 17, 1925. The judgment held that as the assured had taken his own life the insurance companies were not liable for the payment of the policies. At the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Life Insurance Officers' Association, held in Toronto on Nov. 19, 1926, the following officers were elected: President, T. G. McConkey, Canada Life; First Vice-President, T. A. Dark, Excelsior Life; Second Vice-President, W. H. Somerville, Mutual Life; Honorary Secretary, H. R. Stephenson, Crown Life. Mgr. Casualty Dept... J. C. Ratchford. Appointed Address Winnipeg Winnipeg Toronto Commercial Union Assurance Co.. Manager for Canada.. John Holroyde.. . Mgr. for Man. & Sask. N. J. Black. Confederation Life Association... Director... Arthur F. White. H. D. Burnes. and Accident Insurance Co... Supervisor for Sask...C. V. Smith. Dominion Life Assurance Co...... Mgr. Montreal Div... Robert_Rousso, Manufacturers' Life. .Asst. Secretary.. Hygiene Dir. Field Service. Manager, B.C. .. Director President 1st Vice-President. . Director. Mgr. Canadian Br. ...R. E. Dowsett. . James Judge...... LITERATURE, HISTORY, ART, MUSIC AND DRAMA Progress of Prizes and Honours By William Arthur Deacon The widespread interest in the work of native authors that marked 1925 was intensified in 1926, when a large number of Canada's senior authors issued books, and an unprecedented amount of younger talent was in evidence. Poetry has been the most notable of Canada's literary products, and the quantity and quality issued in 1926 made that year a record one. In both prose and verse, it was apparent that many new and virile writers were at work; and when, at the beginning of 1927, prizes and honours were bestowed freely upon Canadian authors, there was general satisfaction. The national literary movement, started in 1921, continued to be healthy and increasingly strong, and the severest of its critics have to admit that the best of its fruits were very good. On the foundation in 1925, of the Lorne Pierce Gold Medal "for distinguished service to Canadian literature," donated by Dr. Pierce and awarded by the Royal Society of Canada, Charles G. D. Roberts was fittingly selected to be its first recipient in May, 1926, the second annual award going to Duncan Campbell Scott a year later with equal propriety. The most popular win of the year 1927, was the capture of The Atlantic Monthly's novel prize of $10,000 against a field of over 1,100 entrants by Mazo de la Roche, a young author of Canadian birth who had been writing sincere and distinguished fiction for some years, Jalna, the winning story, being her fourth book and third novel. It is a realistic narrative of an English family settled on the shore of Lake Ontario, with a fine mingling of humour and pathos. Her Delight, issued a few months previously, is a light, whimsical novel about an English immigrant dining-room girl in a small town Ontario hotel-a charming and original piece of work. Her fellow authors expressed their appreciation in the form of presentations and complimentary banquets; and the city of Toronto made her a gift of silver. The annual prizes provided by the Provincial Government of Quebec, totalling $5,000, and popularly known as "the David Awards," continued to be given as usual. Quebec set aside the further annual sum of $6,000 to be given as twelve prizes of $500 each for the best studies in Canadian history for the year. In the first contest closed in 1926, only seven of these prizes were awarded, the winners in order of merit being M. Jean Delalande, Montreal, for The Sovereign Council of New France; Irene Moore, Regina, for De La Vérendrye; Dorothy Heneker, Montreal, for La Tenure Seigneurial au Canada; Dr. A. Vallee, Quebec, for Sazarin; C. S. Blue, Ottawa, for Alexander McKenzie; S. Martin, Ottawa, for Pierre Boucher; J. N. Fauteux, Montreal, for L'Industrie Sous Le Régime Français. Professor H. Ashton of the University of British Columbia was awarded a medal by L'Académie Française for his book Lettres de Mme. de la Fayette et de Gilles Ménage. In a contest for short stories held by MacLean's Magazine, in the Spring of 1927, the following prizes were awarded: Lillian Beynon Thomas, Winnipeg, $500; R. V. Gery, North Battleford, $250; Mazo de la Roche, Toronto, and Leslie McFarlane, Haileybury, $125 each. The Jardine Prize of $100 for a poem went to Nathaniel A. Benson, an undergraduate of the University of Toronto. T. M. Morrow of Montreal won the General Prize of the Poetry Society of Louisiana. It was announced in June 1927, that Isabel Ecclestone MacKay, who had won first prize in the All-Canadian play contest of the I.O.D.E. of the previous year, was the winner of the 3rd prize of $250 in a contest for a three-act play conducted by the Penn Publishing Co., Philadelphia. The Sixth Annual Convention of the Canadian Authors Association was held at Vancouver Aug. 5, 6, and 7, 1926, and was attended by over a hundred delegates, representing a membership of 661. The Presidential address by Dr. W. T. Allison was mainly directed to rebutting the criticism that Canadian Book Week was a scheme for indiscriminate advertising on behalf of Canadian books. He explained that the aim was educational, and was intended to remedy the situation of not one-half of one per cent. of the population being able to name ten Canadian authors, past or present, who had achieved international fame. He spoke of the necessity of instructing children in the schools upon the worthy literature that Canada had produced. He proposed, in the interests of the authors, that the annual output be curtailed. The special committee again brought in its report that it had not been successful in having the licensing clauses deleted from the Copyright Bill; and again the authors registered a vigorous protest at interference with their property rights in their own creations by the publishers under Government sanction. The following officers were elected: President, Dr. W. T. Allison; Secretary, Watson Kirkconnell; Treasurer, Robert Watson; President French Section, Hon. Cyrille Delage; Vice-Presidents, Dr. A. MacMechan, Halifax; Judge Adjutor Rivard, Quebec; Edmond Montet and B. K. Sandwell, Montreal; Dr. E. E. Price, Ottawa; Dr. Charles G. D. Roberts, Toronto; Dr. W. Sherwood Fox, London; Dr. A. W. Crawford, Winnipeg; W. A. MacLeod, Regina; W. E. Edmonds, Edmonton; Mrs. Flos Jewell Williams, Calgary; Percy Gomery, Vancouver, and Donald A. Fraser, Victoria. At its seventh Annual Convention, held in Ottawa, June 28, 29, and 30, 1927, The Canadian Authors' Association was welcomed |