Nineteenth Day, Monday, September 24, 1923 PLENARY MEETING (Twelfth). The Assembly met and adopted the resolutions of Committee Two on double taxation, tax-evasion, financial reconstruction of Europe, commercial arbitration, international conference on customs formalities, discrimination against aliens in commerce, unfair trade-competition, uniformity of law for commercial paper, uniform economic statistics. It then discussed the report of Committee Two on the Finland-Russia dispute over Eastern Carelia; Russia not having consented, the Permanent Court of International Justice had declined to take jurisdiction. The Assembly then proceeded to discuss the report of Committee One on Item 9 (Amendment of Art. X of the Pact). COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Committees One, Three and Five met and continued discussion of Items already noted. Twentieth Day, Tuesday, September 25, 1923 PLENARY MEETING (Thirteenth). The Assembly met and concluded the discussion of Item 9 (Amendment of Art. X of the Pact). Speeches were made by the delegates from Canada, Persia, Panama, France, Netherlands, Esthonia, Greece, Great Britain, Switzerland. The vote, as taken, on the proposal to adopt the interpretative clause, stood: Ayes, 29, Noes, 1, Not Voting, 13. Unanimity being necessary, the resolution was lost. The one negative vote was Persia's. [For the text of this resolution, see ante, Sixteenth Day.] COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Committee One met and discussed Item 26 (Mode of Election of Non-Permanent Members of the Council). Committee Three met and discussed Item 7 (Reduction of Armaments, including Chemical Warfare and the Washington Naval Treaty). Committee Four met and discussed financial questions. Committee Six met and discussed Item 22 (Protection of Minorities in Esthonia) and the report of the Mandates Commission. Twenty-first Day, Wednesday, September 26, 1923 PLENARY MEETING (Fourteenth). The Assembly met and adopted a resolution urging prompt ratification by the remaining Member-States of the Amendments to the Pact already voted (1921) by the Second Assembly, viz., to Art. IV (Election of Non-Permament Members of Council), Art. VI (Allocation of League Expenses), Arts. XII, XIII, XV (Reference of Disputes to Permanent Court of International Justice), and Art. XXVI (Mode of Amending the Pact). The Assembly then adopted the report of Committee Six, on mandated territories. COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Committees One, Three, Four, Five and Six met and continued discussion of items already noted. It was announced that 39 States (including the United States of America) had signed the protocol as to putting into effect the Hague International Opium Convention of 1912; also that 33 States (not including the United States) had accepted the system of requiring import certificates, of which 20 States had named a date for making it effective. Twenty-second Day, Thursday, September 27, 1923 PLENARY MEEETING (Fifteenth and Sixteenth). The Assembly met at 10 A. M. and adopted the resolutions reported by Committee Five on Item 15 (Traffic in Opium). [See proceedings of Fourteenth and Sixteenth Days.] It then voted to place on the agenda of the Fifth Assembly (1924) a proposal of the Norwegian delegation to call an International Conference on Civil Justice for the Poor, and to authorize the Secretariat to make preliminary arrangements. [This resolution had been introduced by request of the (American) National Association of Legal Aid Agencies, organized at Cleveland, in June, 1923.] The Assembly met at 3:30 P. M., and voted to adopt the resolutions reported by Committee Five on Item 18 (Intellectual Coöperation; including an international bureau of university education, recognition of diplomas, protection of scientific property, international bibliography, etc.). It also adopted resolutions on Item 30 (Protection of Women and Children in the Near East), Item 31 (Relief of Peoples Overcome by Disaster). Item 26 (Mode of Election of Non-Permanent Members of Council), and on the work of the League's High Commission on Political Refugees. COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Committees Three and Six met and continued discussion of items already noted. Twenty-third Day, Friday, September 28, 1923 PLENARY MEETING (Seventeenth and Eighteenth). The Assembly met at 10:30 A. M. It first adopted a report of Committee Five on Traveling Facilities for Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. It then adopted a report of Committee Six (Dr. Nansen, spokesman), on Item 8 (Abolition of Slavery in Mandated Territories and Elsewhere). Next, on report of Committee Six, it voted (45 to 0) to admit the Empire of Abyssinia (called Ethiopia, in French) as a member of the League; and the delegates of Abyssinia, their credentials being approved, took seats in the Assembly. [This subject. had received exhaustive inquiry, on account of the slavery question.] Then the report of Committee Four, on salaries of the Secretariat and the International Labor Bureau, was adopted. The Assembly met again at 3:30 P. M. First, it adopted a provisional rule for Item 19 (Allocation of League Expenses), including a temporary diminution of Japan's quota by reason of the earthquake destruction of assets. It then adopted the report of Committee Four on Item 24 (Budget for 1924), including a measure for the development of the Latin-American Bureau. It then took up the resolution of the Council for submitting to a commission of jurists certain legal questions arising out of Italy's refusal to submit to the League the legality of its act of aggression upon Greece, in August, 1923. This was the signal for many delegates to free their long pent-up feelings of censure for that act. Dr. Nansen (Norway) described, in plain but parliamentary language, "the important moral issues involved in the recent crisis," but was finally declared by the President to be out of order. Mr. Gilbert Murray (South Africa) took a similar line, and was followed by Prince Arfa-ed-Dowlah (Persia), Mr. Enckell (Finland), Mr. MacNeill (Ireland), Mr. Zahle (Denmark), Mr. Urentia (Colombia), and Mr. Loudon (Netherlands). Not a word was said in defense by the delegates of Italy. Twenty-fourth Day, Saturday, September 29, 1923 PLENARY MEETINGS (Nineteenth and Twentieth). The Assembly met at 10 A. M. It adopted the report of Committee Four on Item 14 (Epidemics Commission). It then proceeded to Item 7 (Reduction of Armaments, in particular, the draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance), and after a full debate adopted the resolutions of Committee Three (Mr. Benes, Czecho-Slovakia, spokesman). These resolutions submit the draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance to Member-States for an expression of opinion (not for signature), and deal also with limitation of armament expenditure, private manufacture of arms, and chemical warfare. The Assembly met again at 3:30 P. M. Upon proceeding to elect the six non-permanent members of the Council for 1924, the vote resulted as follows (40 States being present): Uruguay (40), Brazil (34), Belgium (32), Sweden (31), Czecho-Slovakia, Spain (30 each). [Here Czecho-Slovakia replaced China; the others were re-elected from 1923.] After a closing address by President Torriente, the Fourth Assembly then adjourned sine die. HOW FAR DOES KNOWLEDGE OF AN AGENT AFFECT THE DEFENCE OF FRAUD IN AN ACTION ON A LIFE INSURANCE POLICY? BY PAUL E. PRICE1 The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States2 reversing its former decisions upon this subject and declaring unconstitutional state statutes forbidding the removal to the federal courts of causes commenced in a state court against a foreign corporation licensed to do business in such state, upon penalty of the revocation of the licenses of such foreign corporations, suggests consideration of the rules of law applied by the several state courts to various transactions and the difference, if any, of the rule of law upon the same subject in the federal courts. One of the most prolific sources of litigation between beneficiaries under policies of life insurance and the companies issuing such life insurance policies is the oft-asserted claim on behalf of the company that the policy was procured by the insured in his lifetime through fraudulent representations made to the company in his application for insurance. Where it is apparent that the application in fact did contain representations concerning the health of the applicant material to the risk which were in fact not answered correctly, the beneficiary has usually sought to avoid the effect of such representations by advancing the counterclaim, and offering proof in support thereof, that the insured furnished true and correct information to the company's agent, but that the agent either answered the questions for the insured and without his knowledge or consent inserted incorrect answers in lieu of and in substitution for the correct answers and information given him by the insured, or else upon receipt of the correct answers and information, told the insured that it would not be necessary or material for him to disclose such information to the company and advised the insured as to the answers which the company wanted and expected, or that, notwithstanding the falsity of the answers contained in the application, the 1. [Of the Chicago bar.] 2. Terral v. Burke Construction Co. 257 U. S. 529, 66 L. ed. 352. 3. Doyle v. Continental Ins. Co. 94 U. S. 535; Security Mutual v. Prewitt 202 U. S. 246. |