The subject upon which, at the suggestion of your Council, I have undertaken to address you to-night is “Some of the Modern Developments of the Life Assurance System”, including under this heading not only those which most of us will regard as improvements, but others which some among us may consider mere excrescences and eccentricities. The subject, as I have found somewhat to my cost, is a very large one, needing for its full elucidation an enormous mass of detail, which, were your patience equal to its due exposition, would not, I think, bring with it any corresponding pleasure or profit. I propose, therefore, to treat the subject on somewhat broader lines, in which I shall use details only so far as they may illustrate principles.

A careful study of the prospectuses of the leading life offices discloses so great a variety of practice in minor details that the question naturally arises whether something cannot be done to secure uniformity. I propose in the following pages to discuss a few illustrations of this diversity of practice with a view to showing that the requisite combination on our part could not fail to exercise a beneficial influence by the simplification of a naturally complex branch of business, by the withdrawal of unnecessary and vexatious restrictions, as well as by the resistance which could be offered to the demands for unwise concessions.