Although a great deal of what might be fairly comprised under the heading to this paper came under discussion last year at the International Congress of Actuaries, I yet venture to submit that, upon so important and comprehensive a subject as the one I have chosen, there is a considerable amount of information, statistical and actuarial, which at that great gathering was not even touched upon. In the first place, the contributions to the Congress, valuable though they were, dealt only with the experience of individual Colonies or groups of Colonies, and the observations of the contributors were limited to particular branches of their subject. Secondly, some of the principal British Possessions, such as India, Canada, and the West Indies, appear to have been entirely unrepresented as regards life assurance among the subjects discussed. It is, therefore, with the object, partly of filling up a few of the gaps left vacant at the Congress, but chiefly of surveying the subject as affecting not merely individual Colonies or Dependencies, but the whole of the British Empire outside our own country, that I have collected and set down these notes.

I do not think that any apology, is necessary for asking the members of the Institute of Actuaries to devote a meeting to a consideration of the subject of Sinking Fund Assurances. My paper—if paper it can be legitimately called—contains, I am afraid, little, if anything, that will be new to those actuaries who have had to consider the subject, and doubtless in itself demands a very ample apology for the temerity of its author in submitting it to the criticism of the Institute. I am not, however, without hope that the ensuing discussion may bring out some points of practical interest, and if this should be so, and more particularly if fuller consideration of the subject should lead to an arrangement on the lines indicated in the concluding paragraphs of my remarks, I think I may fairly ask that these results may be considered as to some extent a mitigation of my offence.