104 BRITISH LIFE ASSURANCE, 1914-1918 
reference to them will be necessary in the pages which follow, 
it will be useful here to explain the working of the system, so 
as to show with what degree of exactness it reveals the facts 
from time to time. 
It should here be mentioned that the Act of 1870, above 
referred to, was in 1909 replaced by the Assurance Companies 
Act (9 Edward VII, c. 49). That measure introduced a few 
differences of detail as regards the Life assurance business, 
which are unimportant for the present purpose; but its chief 
object was to include within the scope of insurance legislation 
Fire, Accident, Employers’ Liability, and Bond Investment 
insurance, with none of which the present study is concerned. 
Each Company is required to lodge the prescribed state- 
ments within an interval (originally of nine months, but since 
1st July 1910 of six months) from the close of its financial year. 
The Board of Trade publishes in a volume issued early in each 
year the whole of the statements received by it in the preceding 
year ; and as most of the Companies close their financial year 
on 31st December, it follows that each volume, speaking 
generally, records the figures of the calendar year two years 
sarlier than that of publication. Thus, the volume published 
in 1920 would contain the statements lodged in 1919, and these 
would give the facts for 1918. If every Company’s financial 
year were coincident with the calendar year this would be 
exactly true. As a matter of fact there are a few exceptions ; 
but for comparative purposes this is not important, and in 
such statistical statements as will occur hereafter it will be 
assumed that the volume published in any calendar year shows 
the results for the last calendar year but one, and that is the date 
which will appear in those statements. This is really the only 
practicable method, and for the purpose in view it is adequate. 
About ten years after the publication of the Board of Trade 
Returns began, there were added each year some very useful 
summaries of their results, showing the totals for all Com- 
panies of the various items in the revenue accounts and balance 
sheets. Pressure of work and depletion of staff made it necessary 
to suspend these during the war years, but they have recently 
been revived in a modified form ; and it is much to be hoped