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