My intention is to give some simple illustrations of the difficulties which arise when the market rate of interest has sunk below the limit of solvency for parts of a company's stock of life contracts. In fact, the “partial liquidation” which at such a contingency would appear most natural to the unbiased mind of an actuary, does not seem to be seriously contemplated in insurance legislation. As regards Sweden, this mathematically correct reduction of the liabilities of some of the contracts could perhaps be realized within the legal frame in Mutual Offices. But it is impossible for other companies. It seems therefore necessary to attack the problem from the purely actuarial point of view. If we can find a technically satisfactory solution, it might then be possible to go farther with the question of giving the procedure legal shape.

It appears from the Journal Index that as regards Indian insurance, contributions to the Journal have been almost entirely concerned with various aspects of mortality in India. Apart from matters relating to mortality, the latest reference in the Journal was in 1912 when the Indian Life Assurance Companies Act, then lately passed, was printed with prefatory notes by Mr A. T. Winter. It seems appropriate that we should give some consideration to the new Act repealing the Act of 1912.

In Todhunter's Compound Interest (4th edition, chapters 8 and 9) several methods are given for the approximate determination of the rate of interest involved in a given transaction. In these methods there is no adequate treatment of the errors contained in the results. No simple means are given whereby the computer can tell to how many significant figures the results can be trusted.