Year: 1874

|


| TIE GENEVA AWARD BILL.


| 1t was better that Congress should provide
| for at least some of the claimants under the
award of the Geneva Tribunal, than that it
should throw this much debated and shame
| fully deferred matter over to another session
end many members who disapprOve of the
principles of the original Senate bill voted for
| it as amended, with the understanding that it
| left the status of the insurance companies open
for further consideration. We do not question
the prudence of their determination. 1t would
certainly have been disgraceful if Congress
had adjourned without any action at all
on a subject which concerns SO nearly the
honor of the Government. Even as the case
now stands, however, we fear the United
States will cut but sorry figure in the eyes
of the world. Leaving out of consideration
the legal and equitable rights of one and
another class of claimants, Congress has placed
| itself ip Boaroiscreditable attitude Of attempt
ing bS"rrick and fraud and indirecton to
| keep a certain sum of money which the public
opinion both of Europe and America declares
| to have been committed to this Government
| in trust for specified individuals. The bill ex-
Guiding the insurers was pushed through the
Senate by sharp practice, when decided
majority of that body was known to be
| against it.; and now it has gone through the
| House in disguise not in such q shape
| indeed as to make the rejection final, but
under modification which places the insurers
at great disadvantage.


Mr.. Butler assured the House that the bill
merely provided for those claims about which
| 1.ft oil ha tbarl
to the future judgment of Congress, without
"prejudice." This, however. is not strictly
true. The bill declares that the Court of Com
mission instituted by it for limited time
shall not pay" the claims of the insurance
companies; and although it is of course within
| the power of Congress to repeal this prohibi-
| ton, and to create q new Commission when
the present one expires, it is absurd to
say that the act of exclusion works
| no prejudice against tho claimants to
| whom it applies. They are ruled out abso-
| lutely so long as the law stands. They are
placed in the same category with the sufferers
from vessels for which the tribunal decided
that Great Britain was not liable, and with
those who ask for the refunding of enhanced
premiums which the tribunal declined to con-
slider on the ground that they were indirect
damages. The deferred claims are all dis
credited by the mere fact that they are
| deferred, and the claims of insurers are
placed at double disadvantage by being
| coupled with others which are papably
and grossly unjust Nor is this all. The
Blk properly provides that if the sum of all
| the judgments rendered, together with the
| interest, shall exceed the amount of the Ge-
neva Award, the money shall be proportion
ately distributed. That, however, is not likely
to affect the claimants favored by the present
bill, for there can hardly fail to be a large
surplus after paying them in full 4; but SINH
lar rule will not improbably have to
apply to those who come afterward.
That is to say, the participants in the
first distribution will recover the whole
amount of their losses, while the insurers, if
they get anything at all, may receive only
prOportionate share OF an uncertain re-
mainder. This is preposterOus. Either the
insurers are entitled to nothing at all. or they
have a right to equal treatment with the
claimants whom the bill puts before them.
| 1t has been well said in the House of Rep
resentatives and elsewhere, that the behavior of
the United States Government in respect to this
money has gone far to bring arbitration into dis
repute, and teach the whole world to distrust
our pecuniary honor. But so far as the mere
exclusion of the claims Of insurance companies
is concerned, it may not be impertinent to
remember that long before Gen. Butler made
his now famous report against them the same
| line of argument was taken by at least one
of the leading journals of London, to
show that Great Britain ought not to
pay any damages at ALL The shippers and
ship-owners had been reimbursed by insurers
insurance companies had protected themselves
by war premiums; increased rates had been
covered by high freights, and high freigLls by
high prices; and thus the loss had been so
evenly distributed over the whole country that
nobody in particular could equitably claim in.
demnity. Whatever may be said of the fall
lacy of this reasoning. it does not become the
inventors of it to rail at the American people
because faction in Congress has seemed dis
posed to adopt it.