[12 BRITISH LIFE ASSURANCE, 1914-1918 
Simon) deprecated the insertion of any provision as to policies 
and said, * You have to be careful in making provision that 
volicies are not to lapse for non-payment of premium, in the 
interests of those who find it difficult to pay, lest quite uninten- 
tionally you may strike at the whole actuarial basis on which 
policies are issued which are held by people who do pay’. The 
feeling of the House, however, was in favour of legislating 
on the matter, and later in the evening Sir John Simon suggested 
the insertion of the words above italicized and also the following 
Jefinition : ° This sub-section applies to life or endowment 
policies for an amount not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or 
payments equivalent thereto, the premiums in respect of which 
are payable at not longer than monthly intervals, and have 
been paid for at least the two years preceding the fourth day 
of August nineteen hundred and fourteen. This limited the 
scope of the proposed legislation to Industrial assurance. 
These suggestions were accepted by the House, and the 
Bill was read a second and third time and passed at that day’s 
sitting. Thus in a few hours, and without anything worth the 
name of adequate discussion, a step was taken which, whether 
right or wrong, was fraught with important consequences and 
was a new departure in British Life assurance legislation. 
It would be foolish, as well as ungenerous, to apply to our 
legislation of August 1914 the same critical standards as would 
be appropriate in time of peace. The conflict abroad had 
already, by the time the above discussion took place, developed 
such proportions as made its unprecedented seriousness 
apparent. Probably what was done in the House of Commons 
was largely due to two prevalent and not unnatural impressions : 
that the war would be of comparatively short duration, and 
that during its continuance there would be severe industrial 
distress at home. (Of the first of these there is indeed evidence 
‘n the debate itself. Mr. Lyell said, ‘ No one can measure the 
uration of the war, but if it lasts for eighteen months or two 
years surely it will be time enough then to lapse a policy.’) 
Both impressions were falsified by events. The war lasted for 
tour years and a quarter ; and the need for material, which as