45

During these years Senator Cox found his financial responsibilities so many and varied and the interests of the Canada Life in such safe and well-trained hands that he gradually lessened his active personal control in the institution-though never his personal affection for the first and greatest of his financial associations. His eldest son, E. W. Cox, had in 1906 become General Manager of the Company.

His speeches at succeeding annual meetings were brief reviews of continued progress; in 1913 he was able to point out that a Company which in 1880 had announced with pride that its assets exceeded $4,000,000 was now able to state a yearly increase greater than that entire total.

Early in January, 1914, Senator Cox had found it necessary, for reasons of health, to resign the Presidency of the Canada Life. He was appointed Honorary President and his son, Edward W. Cox, became President as well as General Manager. The Senator died shortly afterwards-on Jan. 16th. Mr. Adam Brown, an old friend of Senator Cox, and a Director of the Company, paid an eloquent tribute to the personality and work of Senator Cox at the Company's annual meeting. He spoke in part as follows: "Much of the great prosperity of the Canada Life can be traced to the time when George A. Cox became an active agent for it in Eastern Ontario. In the vigour of his young manhood, with untiring energy, he did wonders in the building up of a business of large volume. From the very start he took pride in his work. He was indeed a pillar of this Company, and I can bear testimony to the fact that no man ever sat on the Board who gave wiser counsel than he did. Great as all these things were, I put them all aside, and speak to you of him as a man. He was a Christian gentleman, whose life and religion were one. He did not preach one thing and practice another. He lived to do good."

For over 50 years, as Branch Manager, General Manager, Director and President, Senator Cox had served the Canada Life; in finance and industry as well as insurance he had been an important factor and was President or Director in the Central Loan & Savings Co., the Toronto Savings & Loan Co., the Russell Motor-Car Co., the Canada Foundry Co., the Western Assurance and the British America, the Canadian Bank of Commerce, the Canadian General Electric Co., the Electrical Development Co., the National Trust Co., the Dominion Coal Co., and Dominion Iron and Steel, the Toronto Street Railway, the Canada Cement Co.; in a national sense he had held high place in the councils of the Midland Railway, the Grand Trunk and the Grand Trunk Pacific, in the Senate of Canada and in a myriad public interests. He had gone, but the work of his life and brain remained; the memory of the man himself, the force of his personality, were lasting influences in the country he had served so well.

Less than six months after this Mr. E. W. Cox passed away at Folkestone, England, (June 26th) where he had gone to win a hopedfor renewal of health after a serious illness. His position, his opportunities, his influence in controlling the affairs of the Canada Life

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46

HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE CANADA Life

were transferred by the Board to his brother, Herbert C. Cox, who for 20 years had been associated with the Company, except for two years during which he held the presidency of another Life office. He was at this time also connected, as President or Director, with many other financial or industrial concerns and had been President of the Life Underwriters' Association of Canada and Vice-President of the National Insurance Association of the United States. In his first Presidential address to the Canada Life (Jan. 28th, 1915) he had to deal with the unprecedented situation caused by a worldwar which he described as "a mighty upheaval with its disruption and dislocation of a world's business, its destruction of financial enterprises, its untold and unspeakable annihilation of human life and property." Yet it had also served to "demonstrate beyond peradventure the unshaken strength and the co-operative value of the great life assurance corporations."

Mr. Cox drew attention to the extreme lowness of the mortuary losses and the great care taken of investments and their valuation; and pointed out that the constant aim of the management is to make the policy contracts more liberal and desirable, the following being recent examples of this: the extension of the automatic non-forfeiture option to the older policyholders; the decision to pay the medical fee on revival of a lapsed policy which had not previously been in default; the dispensing with friends' reports in connexion with new applications for insurance; the rating of applicants as at their nearest birthday instead of the next birthday; the special assistance given policyholders under unforseen conditions to enable them to keep their policies in force, or to revive them if in default; and the provision for automatically paying the premiums of those who had enlisted for active service in the present war. A Contingent Reserve had also been created as a buffer against any possible shrinkage in the value of securities or increase in the death rate caused by the war.

Mr. J. H. Plummer, Vice-President, on this occasion paid special attention to the securities held for the Company's $56,000,000 of assets. There were on Dec. 31st, 1914, $19,002,499 of Government, Municipal and other Bonds, Stocks and Debentures-very little more than in 1910; $20,496,155 of mortgages on Real Estate or an increase of over 8 millions; the Loans on Policies were $9,028,482 as against nearly $6,000,000 in 1910; the value of the Company's Real Estate and Buildings at nine Canadian centres and at London, England, was $3,610,682 or an increase of $1,396,000. Mr. Plummer emphasized the efficient, effective condition of all the Company's loans, investments and properties.

The Board elected on Jan. 28th, 1915, was as follows:

ANNUAL RECORD

OF A GREAT CANADIAN JOURNAL

It is very seldom that a man or a newspaper, a leader in public life or private thinking, finds oft-expressed opinions proven correct, urgent prophecies realized, vigorous warnings vindicated. When all this happens in one great overwhelming outburst of world-war it is something worthy of record, something memorable in the life of a man, something notable in the history of a newspaper. It was, in 1914, the fate of the Montreal Star to attain this position. Like Lord Roberts and Lord C. Beresford, Mr. Balfour and Lord Rosebery in England; like Sir L. S. Jameson in South Africa, Mr. Deakin in Australia and Sir R. L. Borden in Canada; like the London Standard, the Cape Argus or the Sydney Herald; this journal had for years warned the people, with whom it had specially to deal, that a great War would come, that it should be prepared for, and that the Empire was not ready for it.*

More fully than public men could deal with such a question, more consistently and continuously than any other journal in Canada, it discussed the issue year in and year out. The growth of German power, the menace of German preparations, the reality of German military strength and naval ambition, the possible effect of German organizing skill, were treated under varied forms but always with a keen belief in their reality. This attitude was not assumed from any love of militarism as the rivals or political opponents of The Star were prone to argue. Dealing, for instance, with British policy toward the United States over the Benton murder in Mexico, it was pointed out on Feb. 24th that Britain's diplomatic swiftness in obtaining reparation for the murder of British subjects, under such conditions as that of Benton, was almost automatic; that the United States action lacked organized force and assurance and, in fact, had let numbers of Americans be killed before the death of one Englishman had made the cables hot with protest; that therefore American public opinion would hardly approve of war with Mexico over one Englishman when a number of their own people had suffered without that drastic recourse; that Britain was too much involved in European complications to face Mexico and the Monroe doctrine and United States jealousies and do more than make a strong protest-leaving the rest to time and the United States sense of ultimate justice. It was added (Mar. 4th) that "we cannot go to war with the United States because the present American Government regards the killing of men who owe allegiance to its own flag-as well as to ours-as a trivial event." Another reason given threw a light upon the future which not very many saw at that time: "Sir Edward Grey has played for safety. In view of the perilous position in Europe, he is not to be blamed."

This latter reference was only a passing allusion to the subject. *NOTE.-See Record of the Montreal Star in Special Supplement of THE CANADIAN ANNUAL REVIEW for 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913.

On Jan. 8th the situation, as it actually developed six months later, was clearly indicated: "France and Britain are standing together on the defensive. If either were frightened or dragooned into deserting the other, the end would be in sight. All along the French have felt that it was not fair to Britain to leave them practically alone and unsupported on land. The utmost that Britain has ever pretended to be able to do in the case of a great land war, was to send a small expeditionary force to help defend the neutrality of Belgium. That is felt on the Continent to be a pitiful contribution by a first class Power to Armageddon." As matters turned out Belgium took the first shocks of Armageddon and enabled Britain to do better than was expected. On Jan. 31st, a really prophetic comment was made made in connexion with the Anglo-French entente: "If Britain cannot contribute a serious army, it can contribute assured command of the sea-no mean advantage; and it ought to prepare to send an expeditionary force to the Continent at the outbreak of War. Α British professional army, the most highly trained in the world, of, say, 150,000 men, launched across Belgium on the flank of the German advance during the first days of war, might have a very important effect. The part that Canada can play in this drama is two-fold. We can provide three of the Battleships which are to sustain British power in the Mediterranean; and we ought to do so without delay. We can furthermore provide a Militia out of which drilled contingents could volunteer for service in Great Britain." Canada was unable, when the test came, to provide the ships because it possessed a Senate; but it certainly did send the Contingents.

A few paragraphs, with food for much thought, gave expression to the view on Feb. 21st that great armaments might avert war as well as cause it; win bloodless victories and inflict bloodless defeats. In 1908 over the Bosnian annexation matter war was very near, but Russia counted forces, recognized her still crippled armies, her fearfully slow mobilization. She accepted defeat. At Algeciras, three years later, Germany saw that the Russian armies were stronger, that France was ready, that Britain had a naval supremacy not yet efficiently challenged by German fleets, that Italy was engaged in Tripoli. Germany measured her strength and accepted defeat. "The armaments which bring victory in such conflicts as these or which prevent defeat-pay for themselves handsomely, over and over again, though the battleships are allowed to die of old age and the battalions are disbanded without ever seeing an enemy." On June 4th the European Armageddon was coming closer while the Canadian, American and British lovers of Peace were still talking of the Millenium. No more accurate picture of the situation has been penned even after the bubble-blowers had subsided and the bomb-throwers of a world-Power had taken their place than the following:

Germany may feel her financial strain so greatly that she will conclude, if war must come, that she is relatively readier now than she will ever be again. Or she may decide to give the screw another turn, and rapidly and greatly increase her army. Such a step as this last would find France at the end of her resources of defence. She already calls to the colours men of far inferior physical