Chapter 382: , Laws of 1889, to read as follows (19)

"(_b_) to make provision for the appointment of
temporary or acting members of the council during the
absence of any member from illness or otherwise, and for
the procedure to be adopted in case of a difference of
opinion between a Lieutenant-Governor and his council, and
in the case of equality of votes, and in the case of a
Lieutenant-Governor being obliged to absent himself from
his council from indisposition or any other cause.

"(2) It shall be lawful for the Governor-General in Council,
with the like approval, by a like proclamation to create a
council in any other province under a Lieutenant-Governor for
the purpose of assisting the Lieutenant-Governor in the
executive government of the province: Provided that before any
such proclamation is made a draft thereof shall be laid before
each House of Parliament for not less than sixty days during
the session of Parliament, and, if before the expiration of
that time an address is presented to His Majesty by either
House of Parliament against the draft or any part thereof, no
further proceedings shall be taken thereon, without prejudice
to the making of any new draft.

"(3) Where any such proclamation has been made with respect to
any province the Lieutenant-Governor may, with the consent of
the Governor-General in Council, from time to time make rules
and orders for the more convenient transaction of business in
his council, and any order made or act done in accordance with
the rules and orders so made shall be deemed to be an act or
order of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

"(4) Every member of any such council shall be appointed by
the Governor-General, with the approval of His Majesty, and
shall, as such, be a member of the Legislative Council of the
Lieutenant-Governor, in addition to the members nominated by
the Lieutenant-Governor and elected under the provisions of
this Act.

"4. The Governor-General, and the Governors of Fort Saint
George and Bombay, and the Lieutenant-Governor of every
province respectively shall appoint a member of their
respective councils to be Vice-President thereof, and, for the
purpose of temporarily holding and executing the office of
Governor-General or Governor of Fort Saint George or Bombay
and of presiding at meetings of Council in the absence of the
Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor, the
Vice-President so appointed shall be deemed to be the senior
member of Council and the member highest in rank, and the
Indian Councils Act, 1861, and sections sixty-two and
sixty-three of the Government of India Act, 1833, shall have
effect accordingly.

"5.
(1) Notwithstanding anything in the Indian Councils Act, 1861,
the Governor-General in Council, the Governors in Council of
Fort Saint George and Bombay respectively, and the
Lieutenant-Governor or Lieutenant-Governor in Council of every
province, shall make rules authorising at any meeting of their
respective legislative councils the discussion of the annual
financial statement of the Governor-General in Council or of
their respective local governments, as the case may be, and of
any matter of general public interest, and the asking of
questions, under such conditions and restrictions as may be
prescribed in the rules applicable to the several councils.

"(2) Such rules as aforesaid may provide for the appointment
of a member of any such council to preside at any such
discussion in the place of the Governor-General, Governor, or
Lieutenant-Governor, as the case may be, and of any
Vice-President.

"(3) Rules under this section, where made by a Governor in
Council, or by a Lieutenant-Governor, or a Lieutenant-Governor
in Council, shall be subject to the sanction of the
Governor-General in Council, and where made by the
Governor-General in Council shall be subject to the sanction of
the Secretary of State in Council, and shall not be subject to
alteration or amendment by the Legislative Council of the
Governor-General, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor.

"6. The Governor-General in Council shall, subject to the
approval of the Secretary of State in Council, make
regulations as to the conditions under which and manner in
which persons resident in India may be nominated or elected as
members of the Legislative Councils of the Governor-General,
Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors, and as to the
qualifications for being, and for being nominated or elected,
a member of any such council, and as to any other matter for
which regulations are authorised to be made under this Act,
and also as to the manner in which those regulations are to be
carried into effect. Regulations under this section shall not
be subject to alteration or amendment by the Legislative
Council of the Governor-General.

{324}

"7. All proclamations, regulations and rules made under this
Act, other than rules made by a Lieutenant-Governor for the
more convenient transaction of business in his council, shall
be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be
after they are made."

FIRST SCHEDULE.

MAXIMUM NUMBERS OF NOMINATED AND ELECTED
MEMBERS OF LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS.

Maximum
Legislative Council. Number.

Legislative Council of the Governor-General 60

Legislative Council of the Governor of Fort
Saint George 50

Legislative Council of the Governor of Bombay 50

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Bengal division of the Presidency of
Fort William 50

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh 50

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam 50

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Province of the Punjab 30

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of the Province of Burma 30

Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor
of any Province which may hereafter be constituted 30

As will be seen, the Act only conveys in outline to the
Government of India the authority needed for introducing the
intended reforms, leaving all constructive details to be
filled out by the latter in regulations and rules. Six months
were occupied in that task by the Indian Government, and the
resulting prescriptions were published on November 15th, in a
document filling 450 pages of print. The following is a
summary of them, communicated to _The Times_ by its
Calcutta correspondent:

"They comprise, first, a short notice bringing the new
Councils Act into force; secondly, the rules and regulations
for guiding the constitution of the enlarged Imperial and
Provincial Councils, with election rules; thirdly, rules for
the discussion of the annual financial statement and general
resolutions and for the asking of questions; and, fourthly, a
Government resolution explaining the reasons for the changes
made and their main details.

"The resolution shows that the Imperial Council will consist
of 68 members, while the number of members in each of the
Provincial Councils will be as follows:—Bengal, 51; Madras and
Bombay, each 48; the United Provinces, 49; Eastern Bengal and
Assam, 43; the Punjab, 27; and Burma, 18.

"The Viceroy’s Council has an official majority of three,
while all the Provincial Councils have non-official
majorities, ranging from 14 in Bengal to three in Burma. In
the Viceroy’s Council the Mahomedans will have in the first
Council six members elected by purely Mahomedan electorates,
and will also presumably get seats in Sind and the Punjab, as
the resolution says that a representative of the Bombay
landholders on the Imperial Council will be elected at the
first, third, and subsequent alternate elections by the Sind
landholders, the great majority of whom are Mahomedan, and at
the other elections by the Sirdars of Gujarat and the Deccan,
the majority of whom are Hindus.

"Again, the Punjab landholders consist equally of Mahomedans
and non-Mahomedans, and presumably a Mahomedan will be
alternately chosen. Accordingly, it has been decided that at
the second, fourth, and alternate elections, when these two
seats shall not be held by Mahomedans, there shall be two
special electorates consisting of Mahomedan landholders who
are entitled to vote for the member representing them in the
Imperial Council, and the landowners of the United Provinces
and of Eastern Bengal and Assam respectively. The Bombay
Mahomedan member of the Imperial Council will be elected by
the non-official Mahomedan members of the Provincial Council.

"The tea and jute industries get five members on the
Provincial Councils of the Bengals and Madras.

"All members are required to take the oath of allegiance to
the Crown before sitting on any of the Councils, and no person
is eligible for election if the Imperial or a Provincial
Government is of opinion that his election would be contrary
to public interest. This provision takes the place of the old
power to reject members selected by the electorate.

"The examination of the annual financial proposals is divided
into three parts. The first allows a chance for discussing any
alteration in taxation and any new loan or grant to a local
Government. Under the second any head of revenue or
expenditure will be explained by the member in charge of the
Department concerned and any resolution may be moved, and at
the third stage the Finance Minister presents his budget and
explains why any resolutions will not be accepted, a general
discussion following.

"The resolution concludes as follows:

"The new Provincial Councils will assemble early in January
and the Imperial Council in the course of that month. …

"‘The _maximum_ strength of the Councils was 126; it is
now 370. There are now 135 elected members against 39, while
an elected member will sit as of right, needing no official
confirmation. The functions of the Councils are greatly
enlarged. Members can demand further information in reply to
formal answers and discussion will be allowed on all matters
of public interest. They will also in future be enabled to
take a real and active part in shaping financial proposals.
They will have liberal opportunity to criticize and to
initiate and suggest definite resolutions.'"

As operative at the center of discontent, in Bengal, an
unfortunate defect in the regulations was soon discovered,
which made trouble at once. It was reported to _The
Times_ as follows:

"The regulations for the election of the new Councils have
produced a political situation here which will be scarcely
intelligible to those who are not acquainted with the
peculiarities of the Bengali character. The educated classes
in Calcutta were in despair when they discovered that the
rules virtually excluded their leaders, and the more extreme
men seized the opportunity of advocating a boycott of the
reforms. Sir Edward Baker, however, promptly recognized that
the regulations required modification. The rule which
restricted the candidates for the representation of district
boards and municipalities to present members of these bodies
was at once altered so as to include those who had at any time
served for three years on a local authority. The effect of
this concession was to render eligible many previously
excluded.
{325}
Further, when it was pointed out that Mr. Surendranath
Banerjee was shut out by the rule disqualifying dismissed
Government servants, Sir Edward Baker spontaneously intimated
to the Bengali leader that he was exempted from the operation
of this regulation. But, in spite of these conciliatory steps,
pressure is being put on Mr. Banerjee to refuse to stand,
apparently on the ground that, as many of the well-known
Moderates are still ineligible, it is incumbent on Mr.
Banerjee to refuse his services to his country rather than
weaken the force of a united protest."—These persuasions had
success. Mr. Banerjee refused to be a candidate.

The following report from Dacca, December 29, indicates the
result: "The Council elections for Eastern Bengal are not yet
complete. They show, however, a marked preponderance of
Mahomedan representation, due to the deliberate abstention of
the Hindu electorate. This abstention has been worked from
Calcutta in accordance with the manifesto issued by the
Bengali leaders. It is very noticeable among the Zemindar
voters, who are mainly Hindu. The idea is that the Government
will nominate Hindu representatives and will thus defeat the
object of the Reform Scheme."

INDIA: A. D. 1909 (July).
Assassination in London of Sir W. Curzon-Wyllie by
an Indian Anarchist.

The virulence of the hostility in India to British rule, as
developed in schools of anarchism and terrorism, was shown
startlingly to England on the 1st of July, 1909, when
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Curzon-Wyllie and Dr.
Cawas-Lalcaca, a Parsee, were shot dead by an Indian student,
at the close of a reception held in the Imperial Institute at
London. Sir Curzon-Wyllie, formerly of the Indian Staff Corps,
had been serving since 1901 as political aide-de-camp to the
Secretary of State for India, at London. The reception at
which he was assassinated was one of the evenings "At Home" of
the National Indian Association, held mainly for the purpose
of giving the many young Indians residing temporarily in
England an opportunity for social intercourse with friendly
English people. The assassin, a student named Dhinagri, came
as a guest. His brother, a doctor in Calcutta, hearing that he
had been coming under anarchist influences, had asked Sir
Curzon-Wyllie some time before to talk with him, and that
gentleman had done so, with no effect apparently, but to rouse
his resentment. The motive of the crime, however, appears to
have been wholly in the desire to make a display of
"patriotism" and to achieve distinction as a martyr to the
cause of liberty for India. The victim might easily have been
some other. Sir Curzon-Wyllie was leaving the place when he
paused to speak to Dhinagri, and received two deadly bullets
at close range, in the face. Dr. Lalcaca, who stood near,
rushed forward to intervene, and the pistol was turned on him.
Others seized the assassin before he could do more.

When tried and convicted, on the 23d of July, and asked if he
had anything to say, Dhinagri replied angrily: "I have told
you over and over again that I do not acknowledge the
authority of the Court. You can do whatever you like. I do not
mind at all. You can pass sentence of death on me. I do not
care, but remember that one day we shall be all powerful, and
then we can do what we like. That is all I want to say." On
being sentenced to death, the prisoner, making an Oriental
salute to the Judge, said,—"Thank you, my Lord. I don’t care.
I am proud to have the honour of laying down my life for the
cause of my country."

The family of Dhinagri, in India, employed counsel to attend
his trial, who announced to the court that they viewed his
crime with the greatest abhorrence.

----------INDIA: End--------

INDIAN (EAST) IMMIGRATION:
The resistance to it in South Africa, Australia, and elsewhere.

(See in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS.

INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, The.

See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.

INDIAN TERRITORY.
United with Oklahoma to form the State of Oklahoma.

See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES. A. D. 1906 (JUNE).

INDIANS, The American:
End of the Tribal Autonomy of the Five Civilized Tribes.

The last of the proceedings for ending the autonomy of the
Five Civilized Tribes making them citizens of the United
States, and dividing their tribal lands among them
individually, was finished in the summer of 1902, by the
Cherokee Council, which ratified agreements already accepted
by the other four tribes.

See, Volume VI.,
INDIANS, AMERICAN: A. D. 1893-1899.

According to Mr. William Dudley Foulke, who investigated the
circumstances, the Creek nation has suffered grievous frauds
in the final settlement of their land affairs, by the
operation of the Curtis Act, in the matter of the sale of town
sites. Mr. Foulke’s account of the case is given in an article
entitled "Despoiling a Nation," published in January 2, 1908.

INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR.

INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS (capitalistic).

See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL.

INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS (of the employed).

See (in this Volume)
LABOR.

INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION (UNITED STATES), of 1898-1902:
On the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, of 1898, applied to Railroads.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.

INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION (UNITED STATES), of 1898-1902:
On Hours of Labor.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION.

INHERITANCE TAX:
Defeated Proposal in Germany.

See (in this Volume)
Germany: A. D. 1908-1909;
also, DEATH DUTIES.

INITIATIVE.

See (in this Volume)
REFERENDUM.

INJUNCTIONS, in Labor Disputes.

See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.

INLAND WATERWAYS COMMISSION.

See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.

INMEDIATISTAS.

See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.

INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHT, The.

See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.

INSURANCE, AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT.

See (in this Volume)
POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: UNEMPLOYMENT; GERMANY.

{326}

INSURANCE, Industrial.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR PROTECTION.

INSURANCE, Life:
The Legislative Investigation of Companies doing business in
the State of New York, in 1905.
Startling Disclosures of Vicious Management in the greater
organizations, and of Perfunctory State Superintendence.
Report and Recommendations of the Committee.
Remedial Legislation.

A conflict in the Board of Directors of the Equitable Life
Assurance Society of New York, which came to public knowledge
in February, 1905, afforded the beginning of exciting
revelations, as to practices and conditions in the management
of the stupendous organizations of life insurance that are
centered in New York City.

The Equitable Society was founded in 1859 by Henry B. Hyde as
a stock company, with a capital of $100,000, in 1000 shares,
and neither its legal constitution nor its capital had been
changed; but its assets at the end of the year 1904, according
to its statement, had grown to the enormous total of
$412,438,380, and it held a surplus over liabilities of
$80,394,861. This prodigious fund had come under the control
of the holders of the small capital stock of the
company—$100,000; and practically it was controlled by one
stockholder, James Hazen Hyde, son of the deceased founder,
who had inherited a majority of the shares. By the Charter of
the Society, its stockholders were entitled to semi-annual
dividends at a rate not exceeding 3½ per cent., and its
business was to be conducted on the mutual plan: that is,
earnings and receipts above dividends, losses and expenses
were to be accumulated and policy holders were to be credited
with equitable shares of the net surplus, after sufficient
deduction to cover outstanding risks and other obligations.
Nevertheless, the opportunities for personal enrichment,
afforded by the controlling of the great floods of money
poured into its coffers had been found to be immense.

James Hazen Hyde, inheritor of the majority of stock, was Vice
President of the company. Under the terms of his father’s will
he had not yet come into personal possession of his
inheritance, but would do so in a short time. The President of
the company, James Alexander, appears to have become anxious
as to the use the young man would make of the power of that
possession when it came to him, and he entered on a movement
toward changing the organization of the Equitable Society, to
make it a mutual institution in reality, by securing to the
policy holders a voice in the election of directors, leaving
their board no longer a body to be chosen by a single man.
This movement became necessarily public, and the situation in
the company was exposed to public knowledge in a sudden and
startling way. Flood-gates of discussion were opened and
questions started which ran from the Equitable to other
mammoths of life insurance organization that had grown up.
Facts came to light which showed the magnitude of financial
power they had drawn into small circles of men and families,
and the extravagance of compensation appropriated to
themselves by some of these self-appointed and
self-perpetuated administrators of life insurance funds. Such
disclosures became the sensation, not merely of a day, but of
months.

At the outset of the undertaking of President Alexander to
reform the constitution of the Equitable, Vice-President Hyde
was able easily to defeat his movement and make good his own
mastery of the board of directors; but as the public became a
party to the controversy, more and more, it bore down Mr.
Hyde. In April the directors were constrained to appoint a
committee to investigate and report on "the present management
of the society." The committee, composed of H. C. Frick, E. H.
Harriman, Brayton Ives, Cornelius N. Bliss, and M. E. Ingalls,
made a report on the 2d of June which was a deadly indictment
of the society, on many counts,—for "excessive salaries,
excessive commissions, excessive expenses, superfluous
offices," and a "general looseness in the administration of
its affairs." Mr. Hyde and his board made a show of disputing
the findings of the committee and rejecting its
recommendations, but the atmospheric pressure from outside
proved irresistible, and they gave way to it. Mr. Hyde sold
his 502 shares of stock to Thomas F. Ryan for $2,500,000 cash,
Mr. Ryan making it a condition of the purchase that the
Honorable Paul Morton, formerly prominent in railway
administration and lately Secretary of the Navy in President
Roosevelt’s cabinet, should be chairman of the Equitable board
of directors and should have a free hand in reorganizing its
management. Mr. Ryan then, on the 15th of June, placed the
shares in a voting trust, composed of ex-President Grover
Cleveland, Justice Morgan J. O’Brien, and George Westinghouse.
The deed of transfer to these trustees empowered them to carry
out a plan of mutualization, to the end that the society’s
policy holders should elect a majority of the directors in its
board.

The Equitable Life Assurance Society was now in a fair way to
be placed on a footing that would justify its name; but the
events which accomplished this had created an imperative
demand for thorough proceedings of law, to reform and regulate
the whole system under which the profoundly serious
obligations and responsibilities of life insurance are
fulfilled. The first step to that end was taken by the
Legislature of the State of New York on the 20th of July,
1905, when it appointed a joint committee of the Senate and
Assembly and directed the committee "to investigate and
examine into the business and affairs of life insurance
companies doing business in the State of New York, with
reference to the investments of said companies, the relation
of the officers thereof to such investments, the relation of
such companies to subsidiary corporations, the government and
control of said companies, the contractual relations of said
companies to their policy holders, the cost of life insurance,
the expenses of said companies, and any other phase of the
life insurance business deemed by the committee to be proper,
for the purpose of drafting and reporting to the next session
of the Legislature such a revision of the laws regulating and
relating to life insurance in this State as said committee may
deem proper."

{327}

This most notable investigating committee was composed of
Senators William W. Armstrong, William J. Tully, D. J.
Riordan, and Assemblymen James T. Rogers, W. W. Wemple, Ezra
P. Prentice, John McKcown. It was organized on the 1st of
August, with Senator Armstrong as its chairman, and opened
public hearings on the 5th of September following, having
engaged for its counsel Messrs. Charles E. Hughes and James
McKeen. Mr. Hughes was little known to the public at large
when he accepted the duty of conducting this investigation. It
revealed him to the State and the Nation, and was the
fortunate introduction to public life of a man of rare
nobility in character and of remarkable powers.

Eighteen insurance companies doing business in New York were
subjected to investigation; but interest in the proceeding was
centered with intensity on the probing of the affairs of a few
of the greater institutions, such as the Equitable, the Mutual
Life, the New York Life, the Prudential, and the Metropolitan.
The disclosures were rich in sensation; a few only can be
noted here. As to salaries, for example: in the Equitable, the
late Henry B. Hyde and his successor, Mr. Alexander, as
presidents, had received $75,000 per annum in the early years
and $100,000 in the later years of their terms. James H. Hyde,
graduated from college in 1898 and made vice-president the
next year, on his father’s death, received in the first year
$25,000, in the next two years $30,000, in his fourth year
$75,000, and thereafter $100,000. Second vice-presidents were
paid as high as $50,000 per annum; third vice-presidents as
high as $40,000; fourth vice-presidents as high as $30,000.
Salaries of secretaries and comptrollers had run up to $25,000
and $30,000. Thirteen executive officers in the society whose
salaries aggregated $297,600 in 1900, were drawing $448,500 in
1905.

Executive officers in the Mutual Life surpassed even this
experience of bounty. The president’s salary had been $30,000
from 1877 to 1885, $50,000 from 1886 to 1892, then raised to
$75,000 in 1893, to $90,000 in 1895, to $100,000 in 1896, and
to $150,000 in 1901. Richard A. McCurdy had been president for
twenty years and vice-president for the preceding twenty. The
vice-president’s salary had grown from $20,000 in 1877 to
$50,000 in 1902; the treasurer’s had been $40,000 since 1896.

In the New York Life the salary of the president, John A.
McCall, had stopped its increment at $100,000, which it
reached in 1901. The second vice-president’s salary went to
$75,000 the same year. The total salaries of executive
officers were raised from $149,000 in 1893 to $322,000 in
1905.

Agency commissions were sometimes richer sources of income
than the fixed salaries of these generous companies. In the
Mutual Life Company, the president’s son, Robert H. McCurdy,
had an interest in the general agency of the company for New
York City from which he drew $530,788 between 1889 and 1904;
besides which, as superintendent of the foreign department of
the company, he was paid commissions on its foreign business
which yielded him $1,268,390 between 1886 and 1905; some part
of which commissions, however (to an amount not ascertained),
were shared by him with his partner in the New York City
agency. The total net profits of that metropolitan agency,—in
which the president’s son-in-law was likewise a partner,—were
found by the investigating committee to have been $2,389,123
in the twelve years 1893-1904.

These, however, were not the worst, in their moral
implications, of the disclosures that resulted from the search
light brought to bear on the administration of certain life
insurance companies by the Legislative Committee and Mr.
Hughes. A startling share of the prodigal expenditures of some
boards, from the excessive profits of their business, went
secretly, with no accounting, to undiscoverable purposes,
which were purposes, of course, that would not bear
questioning. The following, from the report of the
investigating Committee on the Mutual Life Company, is
indicative of the glimpses given of foul uses to which the
funds of that company were applied. "For a considerable
period," says the report, "it has been the practice for the
Committee on Expenditures to authorize the payment to its
chairman of $25,000 every few months, or from $75,000 to
$100,000 a year, upon the request of one of the executive
officers. The persons to whom the moneys were to be paid by
the company, or the services, if any, for which the payment
was to be made, were not known to the committee, and the only
voucher was the receipt of the chairman of the committee who
received and paid over the money in cash. There was no reason
for this practice save to conceal the purposes for which the
moneys were used, and it obviously facilitated improper
payments.

"There were also a large number of payments charged to legal
expenses which were made upon the recommendation of one Andrew
C. Fields, who for many years was the head of the ‘Supply
Department.’ He was in actual charge of and gave a large part
of his time to matters of legislation. For many years the
company maintained under his care a house at Albany, and
through him and his agents a close watch was kept upon the
proceedings of the Legislature. The rent of this house, the
supplies there consumed, and the wages of the cook and other
servants, were charged to ‘legal expenses.’ Fields left for
parts unknown soon after the Committee began its hearings and
it has not been able to procure his testimony. It appears,
however, that he acted also for the Equitable, and from their
records have been produced a series of memoranda of
instructions sent Fields by Thomas D. Jordan, its comptroller,
whose whereabouts the Committee has been unable to ascertain,
although it has made diligent effort to do so."

The Committee quotes extensively from these memoranda of "T.
D. J.," who instructs his Albany lobbyist what bills the
latter is to "kill," and what he is to support. There are
depths of corruption suggested by this story of the hospitable
Andrew Fields, the vigilant Thomas D. Jordan, their "legal
expenses" for hospitable house-keeping at Albany, and the
sudden vanishment of both when Mr. Hughes began to do his
questioning; but the depths are left unfathomed, because the
Committee found no sounding line.

"The testimony taken by the committee," says their report,
"makes it abundantly clear that the large insurance companies
systematically attempted to control legislation in this and
other States which could affect their interests, directly or
indirectly, and that in this effort Fields, who concerned
himself mainly with this State, played a most important role.
{328}
The three companies [Mutual, New York Life, and Equitable]
divided the country, outside of New York and a few other
States, so as to avoid a waste of effort, each looking after
legislation in its chosen district and bearing its appropriate
part of the total expense." The so-called "legal expenses" of
the Mutual in seven years, 1898-1904, exceeded two millions of
dollars. "In 1904 they amounted to $364,254.95, while those of
the New York Life and Equitable for the same year were
$172,698.42 and $204,019.25 respectively."

The New York Life employed one Andrew Hamilton to give
attention to matters of legislation throughout the country,
and the company was found to have paid him no less than
$1,167,697 for "legal expenses," between 1895 and 1905, no
vouchers being filed beyond Hamilton’s receipt. And these
"legal expenses were in addition to all the ordinary outlays
in connection with suits or legal proceedings or the work of
the legal department of the company."

In the accounts of the Equitable, "among the disbursements
charged to legal expenses appear annual retainers of $20,000
paid Chauncey M. Depew [United States Senator from New York]
and $5000 (for one year—1900—$7500) to David B. Hill. Mr.
Depew testifies … that his services consisted of advising the
late Mr. Hyde in regard to matters of investment, settlement
of controversies and troublesome questions of various sorts. …
During this time Mr. Depew was a director and member of the
Executive Committee. The testimony as to the services is very
general, and it does not appear," says the committee, "that
outside of those which the society was fairly entitled to
receive from him as a director, the services were such as to
warrant the payments made. … The Equitable contributed to the
Republican National Committee $50,000 in 1904; undoubtedly
contributions were made in prior national campaigns, but their
amount has not been stated. For many years the society has
made an annual contribution of $10,000 to the Republican State
Committee through Senator Platt." Senator Platt was a
collector, also, of similar contributions from the Mutual
Life, and that company gave $40,000 to the Republican National
Committee in 1904, as well as smaller sums in previous years.

Of the management in these great companies of the enormous
surplus of profit, which even their inordinate
self-appropriations left in their keeping, no clear account
could be given here. It is set forth in the Committee’s report
by examples of investments, in stocks, bonds, and real
property, so conducted, through subsidiary organizations,
etc., as to yield a personal profit to the skilful financiers
within the life insurance circle. The details which make the
matter plain cannot be abridged and require more space than
can be afforded in this place.

From the investigation of the life insurance companies the
Committee and its counsel passed to the State Department which
was instituted to scrutinize and supervise these
organizations, for the detection and prevention of such abuses
in their management as had now come to light. Their findings
in this direction were stated partly as follows:

"It would seem that the Superintendent [of Insurance] has had
ample power, and has been charged with the correlative duty,
to inquire into and to ascertain the transactions of insurance
companies, to the end that abuses may be exposed and correct
administration assured. The scheme by which the superintendent
may require detailed written statements duly verified, as to
any matter of corporate business and may supplement these
statements by an examination of the company’s books and of the
officers and agents under oath, would appear well calculated
to prevent the secret growth of improper practices. Not only
through the visitorial powers of the superintendent were a
wholesale publicity and the consequent enforcement of the law
to be assured, but the superintendent was also charged with
the duty of recommending to the Legislature annually such
amendments to the law as in his judgment were needed to
correct evils found to be without the purview of existing
statutes.

"But the supervision by the department has not proved a
sufficient protection against extravagance and
maladministration. Annual statements from the corporations
have been received, filed and published, but in many
particulars without sufficient detail to exhibit the real
efficiency of honesty of the management. Nor has there been
suitable effort upon the facts actually reported to detect and
expose evasions of departmental requirements and the resort to
artifice and double dealing in order to avoid a true
disclosure of the companies’ affairs. For the most part a
critical examination of the reports so made seems to have been
neglected, and the verification of the annual statements has
been left to examinations conducted at irregular intervals. No
rule seems to have been adopted with reference to the
frequency of examinations. Thus the Security Mutual Insurance
Company has been examined four times since its reincorporation
in 1898, at its request and apparently with no other object
than to enable it to use the department’s certificate in
support of its annual statement, while the Provident Savings
Life Assurance Society has been examined only once in the past
ten years (1897) and it would seem that this was the only
examination in its history. The Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company has also been examined only once during ten years,
that is, in 1900. The advisability of frequent examinations is
sufficiently illustrated by the case of the Washington Life
Insurance Company, where it appeared on the examination in
1904 that during the interval of four years since the prior
examination it had, in at least two annual statements,
deceived the department by glaringly false returns of its
existing liabilities, and that instead of having an alleged
surplus of considerable amount its capital was seriously
impaired. In connection with this company it may be noted that
a more careful scrutiny of the reports to the department of
lapsed and restored policies would have led at an earlier date
to the investigation which appears finally to have been
induced by outside criticism."

As to remedial legislation, the main recommendations of the
Committee were in substance these:

(1) Investments in stocks of banks and trust companies, in the
common stock of any corporation, in syndicate participations,
and in speculative bonds, to be forbidden.

(2) No political contributions or lobby expenditures to be
permitted.

(3) Full publicity regarding salaries and expenses.

(4) New business of the "big three" companies restricted to
$150,000,000 a year each, and the business of other companies
limited.

{329}

(5) Agents’ commissions to be based on the amount of the
policy and not on the amount of the premium.

(6) Only four kinds of standard policies to be permitted—term,
straight life, limited payment and endowment.

(7) Investment policies to be discouraged and deferred
dividends forbidden.

(8) All dividends on participating policies to be apportioned
annually.

(9) No company to be permitted to sell both participating and
non-participating policies.

(10) The present trustees of mutual companies to be removed.
New ones to be elected under a system whereby the
policy-holders really elect.

The Committee presented the elaborate report of its
investigation to the Legislature on the 22d of February, 1906,
and its recommendations were embodied for the most part in an
enactment, the drafting of which, to a large extent, was the
careful work of Mr. Hughes, the master mind of the whole
proceeding of investigation.

The statements made above are drawn entirely from the
Committee’s Report, as published in Volume 10 of the printed
testimony and report.

_Assembly Document Number 41,
State of New York, 1906._

"INTELLECTUALS."

See (in this Volume)
SOCIALISM: FRANCE: A. D. 1909.

INTELLIGENZIA, The.

See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.

INTEMPERANCE.

See (in this Volume )
ALCOHOL PROBLEM.

INTERFEROMETER, Professor Michelson’s.

See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT.

INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

See (in this Volume)
EUROPE.

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST, AND ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL.

INTERNATIONAL BARBARISM.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR.

INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS:
Resolution of the Third International Conference of
American Republics.

See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, Second and Third.

See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCES.

See (in this Volume)
ST. LOUIS. A. D. 1904.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ALCOHOLISM.

See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM: INTERNATIONAL.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES, of Science.

See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN.

See (in this Volume)
WOMEN.

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE, Central American.

See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1907.

INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES COMMISSION, United States and Canada.

See (in this Volume)
FOOD FISHES.

INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CONGRESS.

See (in this Volume)
GEOGRAPHIC CONGRESS.

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY:
Profit-sharing with Employees.

See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION: PROFIT-SHARING.

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE.

See (in this Volume)
AGRICULTURE.

INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES, Educational.

See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES.

INTERNATIONAL LAW:
Convention providing for a Commission of Jurists to draft a
Code for Regulation of Relations between American Nations.

See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS: THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE.

INTERNATIONAL MERCANTILE MARINE COMPANY, Formation of the.

See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL (INTERNATIONAL).

INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONGRESSES.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904.

INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY CONGRESS.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905.

INTERNATIONAL RIGHT, The Institute of.

See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PEACE.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909.

INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE.

See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

INTERNATIONALISM, SUPERSEDING NATIONALISM.

See (in this Volume)
WORLD MOVEMENTS: FICHTE’S PROPHECY.

INTEROCEANIC CANAL.

See (in this Volume)
PANAMA CANAL.

INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION, The.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT, and Commission.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES; also,
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

On the passage, in 1906, of the Hepburn Act, amendatory of the
Interstate Commerce Law, the Commission was reconstructed by
fresh appointments, in making which the President retained
Messrs. Knapp, of New York, Prouty, of Vermont, Clements, of
Georgia, and Cockrell, of Missouri. His new appointees were
Franklin K. Lane, of California, Edgar Erastus Clark, of Iowa,
and James S. Harlan, of Illinois.

INTOXICANTS, PROBLEMS OF THE.

See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM, AND OPIUM PROBLEM.

INTRANSIGENTES.

See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.

INVENTORY OF CHURCH PROPERTY, THE FRENCH.

See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.

{330}

----------IRELAND: Start--------

IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1903.
The Working of the successive Land Laws.
The Act of 1903.
Text of its main provisions.

The French writer, L. Paul-Dubois, whose work, _L’Irlande
Contemporaire_, published in 1907, has appeared since in an
English translation, seems to have made a very careful and
intelligent study of the working of the successive land-laws
for Ireland, intended to be beneficial to the tenants, which
began with that of Gladstone in 1870.

See in Volumes III and VI
IRELAND.

Mr. Gladstone, himself, in the Act of 1881, endeavored to
remedy the defects of the Act of 1870; but M. Paul-Dubois
finds that, while the later Act "brought and continues to
bring immense good to the country," yet "the system
established by it is, as a matter of fact, no longer bearable
for any one,"—for the reason that "the first great
characteristic of the Gladstonian legislation is duality of
ownership." It is, as he explains, an unhealthy system,
unsound both economically and socially,—this dual ownership,
which turns the landlord and tenant into co-proprietors of the
soil. It paralyses agriculture by preventing the investment of
capital on either side, and by destroying all interest of
either landlord or tenant in the good farming of the land. The
landlord feels himself no longer called upon to do anything
for his property, and has no care left but that of collecting
his rents. The tenant, on the other hand, refrains from making
any improvement or advances that might cause his rent to be
raised at the next quindecennial revision; the land is thus
starved of both labor and capital. We may add, also, that the
new regime gives rise to an infinity of ruinous lawsuits
between the co-owners. … For a quarter of a century there has
been only one class of men whose affairs have prospered,
namely, the solicitors. Their number has increased by 30 per
cent." In his view of the results, M. Paul-Dubois is
sympathetic with both landlords and tenants. But in his
judgment the tenants were not fairly dealt with under the
Gladstonian laws by the Land Commission or by the courts. The
courts, especially, in interpreting the Act of 1881, which
left "fair rent" undefined, established rulings which
practically nullified the intentions of the law, until, as
this writer expresses it, "the Act of 1896 brought the Irish
judges to reason."

Eleven years before that time, however, a little experiment
was begun on the line of a true solution of the Irish land
question, namely, toward the buying of the soil of the island
from its landlords and making its cultivators the owners of
it. This was in the Ashbourne Land Purchase Act of 1885, which
provided a fund of £5,000,000 for advances to be made to
tenant purchasers, with provision for the repayment of the
loan in forty-nine annuities. In 1889 this fund was increased
to £10,000,000. By 1891 the fund had been exhausted, and
"25,367 tenants had been turned into owners of their farms.
Its success even alarmed some of the landlords, who began to
fear that the farmers would combine and force them to sell
their land. However this may be," says the French writer, "in
1891 the Conservative Government passed a new Act which, under
the pretence of regulating the progress of the operation,
complicated it to such an extent that the machine almost
stopped working. In 1896, by another Act, the existing evils
were slightly remedied, but only to an insufficient extent. …
Finally, in 1903, it was found that under the new system
established in 1891 and 1896, only 38,251 tenants had been
turned into proprietors; and at that same date the total
number of peasant owners created from first to last had
reached no higher figure than 73,917. As Land Purchase was
progressing more and more slowly, it was felt that some new
impulse must be given to the machine. This was the aim of the
great Land Act of 1903."

_L. Paul-Dubois,
Contemporary Ireland, part 2, chapters 1-2
(Maunsel & Co., Dublin, 1908)._

"The Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903 was in every respect
epoch-making. It was preceded by, and founded upon, the report
of a conference held between the representatives of landlord
and tenant in Dublin. The Landlords’ Convention, the official
representative of the landlord party, held aloof and refused
to join in the conference. Typical landlords, such as the Duke
of Abercorn, Lord Barrymore, and Colonel Saunderson, refused
to serve, ridiculing the project as absurd and quixotic. Lord
Dunraven led a saner section of landlords, with the result
that, after a session of five days, the conference agreed to a
report, upon which the government acted. The official
landlords, seeing the reasonableness of the findings and
recognizing their own folly, succumbed at once, and fell in
with the general tendency for settlement. Substantially, the
Act of 1903 accepted the principle of universal sale of the
landlord’s interest to the occupier. It ignored legal
compulsion. But it accepted what was finely called the
principle of compulsion by inducement. It placed the sum of
£100,000,000 ($500,000,000) at the disposal of landlord and
tenant for the purposes of the act. It went further,—for it
enacted that out of a fund called the Land Purchase Aid Fund
each landlord who sold should receive a bonus (Latin for gift)
of 12 per cent. on the purchase money. It appointed a new
tribunal to administer the Act. And to this tribunal were
given powers of re-settling congested districts by the
purchase of grass lands, the enlargement of uneconomic
holdings, and the restoration of certain evicted tenants where
possible."

_Thomas W. Russell, M. P.,
The Workings of the Irish Land Law
(American Review of Reviews, November, 1905)._

The following are among the important provisions of the Land
Act of 1903:

"1.
(4) Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary contained
in the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1888, an
advance may be sanctioned under the provisions of the Land
Purchase Acts not exceeding the sum of seven thousand pounds
to one purchaser where, in the opinion of the Land Commission,
it is expedient to make any such advance for the purpose of
carrying out the sale of a holding to which the Land Law Acts
apply. …

{331}

"2.
(1) In the case of the sale of an estate advances under the
Land Purchase Acts may be made for the purchase of parcels
thereof by the following persons:

(_a_) A person being the tenant of a holding on the
estate;

(_b_) A person being the son of a tenant of a holding
on the estate;

(_c_) A person being the tenant or proprietor of a
holding not exceeding five pounds in rateable value,
situate in the neighbourhood of the estate; and

(_d_) A person who within twenty-five years before the
passing of this Act was the tenant of a holding to which
the Land Law Acts apply, and who is not at the date of the
purchase the tenant or proprietor of that holding. Provided
that in the case of the death of a person to whom an
advance under this paragraph might otherwise have been
made, the advance may be made, to a person nominated by the
Land Commission as the personal representative of the
deceased person.

"(2) Advances under this section shall not, together with the
amount (if any) of any previous advance under the Land
Purchase Acts then unrepaid by the purchaser, exceed one
thousand pounds:

"Provided that the limitation in this subsection may, subject
to the other limitations in the Land Purchase Acts, be
exceeded where the Land Commission consider that a larger
advance may be sanctioned to any purchaser without prejudice
to the wants and circumstances of other persons residing in
the neighbourhood.

"(3) The Land Purchase Acts shall, subject to the provisions
of this section, apply to the sale of a parcel of land in
pursuance of this section, in like manner as if the same was a
holding, and the purchaser was the tenant thereof at the time
of his making the purchase, and the expression "holding" in
those Acts shall include a parcel of land in respect of the
purchase of which an advance has been made in pursuance of
this section. …

"6.
(4) In the case of a congested estate as defined by this
section, if the Land Commission, with the consent of the
owner, certify to the Lord Lieutenant that the purchase and
resale of the estate are desirable in view of the wants and
circumstances of the tenants thereon, then the Land Commission
may purchase the estate for a price to be agreed upon, and in
such case the condition in this section as to resale without
prospect of loss may be relaxed to such extent as the Lord
Lieutenant may determine.

"(5) The expression "congested estate" means an estate not
less than half of the area of which consists of holdings not
exceeding five pounds in rateable value, or of mountain or bog
land, or not less than a quarter of the area of which is held
in rundale or intermixed plots. …

"8.
The Land Commission may purchase any untenanted land which
they consider necessary for the purchase of facilitating the
resale, or redistribution, of estates purchased, or proposed
to be purchased, by them, and the foregoing provisions of this
Act, with respect to advances for the purchase of parcels of
land comprised in estates, shall apply in the case of the sale
by the Commission of any parcel of such untenanted land.

"9.
(1) There shall not be at any time vested in the Land
Commission lands exceeding in the aggregate, according to the
estimate of the Commission, as approved by the Treasury, the
capital value of five million pounds in respect of which
undertakings to purchase have not been received by the
Commission. …

"12.
(1) The Land Commission may take such steps and execute, or
cause to be executed, such works as may appear expedient for
the benefit or improvement of estates, or untenanted land,
purchased or proposed to be purchased under this Act, or for
the use or enjoyment thereof or generally for the purposes of
this Act. …

"19.
Where an estate is purchased by the Land Commission and
tenants on the estate to the extent of three-fourths in number
and rateable value have agreed to purchase their holdings, the
Estates Commissioners may, if, having regard to the
circumstances of the case, they think it expedient, order that
the remaining tenants, or any of them, shall be deemed to have
accepted the offers made to them, and the Land Purchase Acts
shall apply accordingly, where the tenant could have obtained
an advance of the entire purchase money, and the Land
Commission have offered in the prescribed manner to make the
advance."

IRELAND: A. D. 1893-1907.
The Gaelic League.