On the first of January, 1910, the total amount of life insurance in force in Canada, exculsive of that on the assessment plan, amounted to over 780 millions of dollars. Of this, all, excepting a little less than 68 millions of industrial insurance, represented what we may properly style as ordinary or old line business. The policies to the number of upwards of a million were distributed between 53 different companies of which 23 were Canadian, 16 American, and 14 British. The British companies carried risks amounting in the aggregate to less than 47 millions and they seemed to be, on the whole, inactive in the matter of securing new business. In 1909, 8 of the 14 British companies carrying risks in Canada wrote no new Canadian business at all. On the other hand, the American companies make a much better showing; the sum total of their policies was nearly 218 millions of dollars, of which approximately one-fifth represented industrial insurance. The rest of the business, amounting to over 515 millions, was carried by the Canadian companies themselves. From these figures, it is evident that the home companies are now strongly entrenched within their own field. A comparison of the present situation with that of thirty years ago would show that the risks of the Canadian companies have increased much more rapidly than have those of their American rivals. In 1879, the amount of the policies of each in force in Canada was less than thirty-four millions. In the noteworthy expansion of life insurance which has since taken place, a number of causes have combined to swell the aggregate business of the Canadian companies. Not the least important factor here to be considered is that of sentiment—a desire to develop Canada for the Canadians and to promote and foster home enterprises. Moreover, on the more popular forms of policies, the premium rates offered by the home companies have been, as a rule, lower than those of their neighbors across the border.

The Parliament Act of 1911 received the royal assent on August 18. By the terms of its important preamble further legislation is promised, which will define both the composition and powers of a new second chamber “constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis;” although “such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation,” the positive provisions of the measure restrict the “existing powers of the House of Lords.” This law, therefore, is intentionally temporary, the first probably of several enactments embodying further constitutional changes.

In the mean time and briefly what does this law now provide? (1) A public bill passed by the House of Commons and certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons to be a “money bill” within the terms of the act shall, “unless the Commons direct to the contrary,” “become an Act of Parliament on the Royal assent being signified, notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not consented to the Bill,” within one month after it has been “sent up to that House.”

About twenty years ago, Mr. Bryce, with microscopic vision, observed that the state governor was “not yet a nonentity.” On the other hand the state legislature was “so much the strongest force in the several states that we may almost call it the Government and ignore all other authorities.” The strangeness of sound with which these statements strike our ears at the present day is indicative of the length of the road which we have since traveled and of the change which has taken place within recent years in the relative positions of the governor and the legislature in our state governments. The unmistakable tendency which now prevails in many quarters towards an enlargement of the power of the governor directs attention anew to the administrative and political position which that officer occupies and to the manner in which his influence and prestige have been, and may be still further, increased.