MUNICIPAL INSURANCE AGAINST HAIL IN SASKATCHEWAN 39 



d) Indemnification for Loss. 



Owners and lessees of land insured under the Act are entitled to indem- 

 nification at the rate of five cents an acre for every one per cent, of damage 

 by hail incurred by their crops between 16 June and 15 September : in 

 other words for every acre on which the crops have been totally ruined they 

 receive 8 5.00. The Act of 1912 provided no indemnification for losses 

 amounting to less than ten per cent, of the crop. Notice of the damage 

 must be given within five days of the date at which it is sustained, by re- 

 gistered letter to the secretar^^ of the Commis.sion at Regina, and must be 

 in the form of a full statement witnessed and verified by a neighbour. The 

 secretary of the Commission delivers this statement to an inspector who ve- 

 rifies it and reports on it. 



All acknowledged claims must be met by the Commission before 15 

 December in each year, unless the Commission consider that its revenues 

 do not permit of full payment, in which case claims must be met pro rata. 



No money due as indemnities can be assigned or garnisheed. 



§ 2. The FIRST THREE YEARS OF INSURANCE. 



For three years the Municipal Hail Insurance Act justified most of the 

 hopes entertained for it. 



a) The Field of Insurance. — The manner in which the farmers of Saskat- 

 chewan took advantage of the provisions of the Act proved that it supplied 

 a real need, and seemed to prove also that it supplied it adequately. At the 

 first municipal elections held after the Act had been passed one hundred and 

 fifteen municipalities voted the by-law which brought them within the sphere 

 of insurance, and as a consequence some twenty million acres of land, of 

 which approximately five million were under crop, were automatically 

 insured against damage by hail. At the next municipal elections, those of 

 the autumn of 19 13, three municipalities repealed the by-law but it was 

 passed by an additional number of fourteen, thus giving a net increase of 

 eleven in the total number insured, which was thereafter 126. After the 

 elections of 1914, 127 municipalities were under the Act and 22,000,000 acres 

 or 34,000 square miles of land — of which 7,000,000 acres were estimated 

 to be under crop -- were in consequence insured for 1915. The working 

 of the scheme in this 5'ear gave such satisfaction that after the elections in 

 the autumn of 1915, 139 municipalities were under the Act. 



The complete freedom to repeal the insurance by-law in anj^ year 

 probabh' caused it to be voted willinglj', the municipalities feeling that they 

 were not committing themselves to the system permanently but merely 

 making trial of it. One municipality passed the by-law in 1913, repealed it 

 in 1914 and passed it again in 1915 : in this case the ratepayers paid the 

 hail insurance tax in 1913 and 1915 but not in 1914. 



It was \-er\ noticeable that the municipalities which were the later 

 adherents to the scheme adjoined others previously in enjoyment of its 



