MAJORITY REPORT. 
at each meeting should be issued to the Press immediately after 
the meeting, and further we arranged that verbatim reports of 
the evidence given before us at each meeting should be published 
and placed on sale within two weeks of the date of the meeting. 
2. We are glad to be able to record that the procedure so 
adopted fulfilled admirably the purposes for which it was designed 
and that the weekly report of our proceedings enjoyed throughout 
a considerable and a steady sale, which reached a weekly average 
of over 600 copies. At the same time notices were inserted in the 
public Press inviting any bodies or persons who desired to make 
representations on matters falling within the scope of our inquiry 
to apply to submit evidence before us. All who were so desirous 
of presenting evidence were required, in the first place, to submit 
written statements summarising the evidence which they desired 
to give. We received in all 143 such statements. Of these 
130 are printed in full in the Appendix to our Minutes of 
Hvidence, where there will also be found summaries of the 
remaining 13. Hach of these statements was first considered 
by us with a view to our deciding whether it was necessary or 
desirable that we should hear oral evidence in amplification of 
the statement submitted. Of the 143 statements 107 were made 
the subject of oral examination of witnesses, who numbered 
195, and to whom we addressed 24,815 questions. Lists 
of the witnesses examined and the bodies which they repre- 
sented are prefixed to the volumes of the Minutes of Evidence in 
which their examination appears, and are also given in Appendix 
B to our Report. We held 45 sittings for the purposes of oral 
examination, including two sittings held in Edinburgh for the 
convenience of Scottish witnesses, and on all but three of these 
occasions we took evidence both in the morning and the after- 
noon. We also held several meetings for the discussion of the 
evidence we had received and for the formulation of our 
recommendations. 
3. During the course of our proceedings we were deprived 
of the assistance of one of our members, Mr. Fred Bramley, 
who, after being able to attend only a few of our meetings, was 
compelled on account of ill-health to resign from the Commission 
on the 11th March, 1925. It was with great regret that we 
learned of his death some seven months later 
TypPES oF EVIDENCE. 
4. The witnesses from whom oral evidence was heard, in 
addition to representatives of the five Government Departments 
concerned, namely, the Ministry of Health, the Scottish Board of 
Health, the Ministry of Labour, the National Insurance Audit 
Department and the Government Actuary’s Department, 
included representatives of the Approved Societies and Insurance