106 BRITISH LIFE ASSURANCE, 1914-1918 
The final year in the table is the last complete one before 
the war. (It is explained in the summary for 1913, as regards 
the sums assured by Industrial policies, that the higher rate 
of increase is caused by the maximum sums assured, in any 
event, under the contracts, being included for the first time.) 
This table is instructive as showing the continuous steady 
advance of Life assurance throughout the community in the 
period following its coming under the influence of special 
legislation. Taking its place as a feature of national life 
throughout a time of steady and increasing national prosperity, 
it made good as a powerful and growing influence in the financial 
development of the country. Meanwhile also it showed con- 
tinually a wider power of adaptation to the public needs. 
A striking instance of this is the growth of endowment assur- 
ance,! which, beginning the period with sums assured of 
£6,522,546 or 2:2 per cent. of the existing total, ended it with 
sums assured of £320,616,905 or 37-5 per cent. thereof. Life 
assurance had in fact become during the forty-four years since 
1870 a thoroughly organized and keenly progressive industry, 
constantly alive to opportunities of expansion in new directions, 
and ready at all points to meet the popular demand. 
It has been said that this progress must not too readily 
be ascribed in its entirety to the advent of special legislation, 
and that much of it would probably have occurred in any case 
as the result of general conditions. There is doubtless truth 
in this, and the argument ° post hoc, propter hoc’ cannot be 
applied to the Act of 1870 and the development of business 
without some qualification ; but it may certainly be maintained, 
especially in view of the circumstances in which the Act came 
into being, that the public confidence engendered by the know- 
ledge of its existence, and the effective check it gave to some 
flagrant abuses, were dominating factors in the subsequent 
history of British Life assurance. 
It was, then, upon this successful activity and resultant 
prosperity that there came in the summer of 1914 the sudden 
and unforeseen shock which was to subject the business to the 
severest strain it had known in the course of its existence. 
1 Ordinary section.