FOREIGN BUSINESS 163 
existing when the policy was issued. No. 15 is merely a defini- 
tion. Rather more importance attaches to No. 14, as that is 
probably intended to deal chiefly with policies subject to what 
is known as a  non-forfeiture scheme ’. This is an arrangement 
whereby a policy which has attained a surrender value cannot 
lapse so long as premiums in arrear, accumulated at compound 
interest, do not exceed the surrender value. When that limit 
is passed the Company gives notice of the fact to the assured. 
The paragraph enables the Company, in cases where owing to 
the war it was unable to give that notice, and on that account 
remained bound by the contract, to recover from the assured 
the outstanding premiums with interest. It would also apply 
of course to cases where no such scheme existed, but where it 
was legally binding on Companies to give the assured notice of 
the lapse of a policy as a condition of ending its liability. 
Taken as a whole these provisions carry out what was the 
1ndoubted desire of the Companies, that after the war had ended 
relations should revert as soon as possible to their old con- 
ditions; that the waters of oblivion should flow over the 
immediate past; and that there should for fulfilment of con- 
tractual obligations be business as usual ’; neither assurer 
nor assured being the worse. That is always the natural 
instinct of the spirit of commerce; and whatever its defects 
it acts as a wholesome corrective to some other instincts which 
are less peaceable. 
The provisions above quoted appear in like terms in the 
treaties with Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria. With Turkey 
there is as yet no treaty. 
What has just been described as the spirit of commerce 
was again strikingly shown by the Companies with refer- 
ence to another part of the treaty which practically affected 
them, that namely which is dealt with in Article 206 headed 
‘Debts’, which set up the Clearing Office system. There is 
! This omission was supplied by the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923). Its Life 
Assurance provisions are substantially the same as those quoted verbatim in the 
ext. There are a few others dealing with the currencies in which claims must be 
ortled, which are scarcely of sufficient general importance to be bere quoted. (Note 
of 1925,