28 BUSINESS OF LIFE INSURANCE

The consequence of this could not fail to be increased pressure as the years went by, the discrimination against the younger of the existing members driving them out through motives of self-interest, and the discrimination against new members causing them to seek protection else-where, perhaps in some newer society where these influences had not yet made themselves felt.

Another form of assessment insurance was introduced after a time which seemed to many of the friends of the system to answer this objection. It consisted in fixing the rates of assessments according to the ages upon admission, and is known as the graded assessment plan. Precisely as under the other plan, there was to be collected currently merely enough to pay the losses. The graduation of the assessments was usually arbitrary, but, even when fixed by reference to a mortality table, it was in accordance with the death-rates for the age upon admission. Let us consider our four men again. They will now set out with a proper rate of assessment for the first year, according to the cost at their respective ages, i. e., let us say, in the ratios of $7.81 for age 20, $979 for age 40, $13.78 at 50 and $26.69 for 60. But twenty years later, they are still paying the same ratios—not, be it understood, necessarily these amounts per annum, but probably more because of the increased