An investigation into the effects of family and personal history upon assurance risks has long been desired by Actuaries, but hitherto in this country the material at their disposal has not been sufficient in volume to admit of analytical treatment. The only attempt the Institute as a body has made to deal with this subject is in the old Institute experience, which contains the records of 11,146 rated-up lives, in which all kinds of risks are combined without any attempt at classification.

In the hope that this long-felt want might, to some extent, be met, an investigation was projected into the experience of a large number of lives assured in the Ordinary Branch of the Prudential Assurance Company whose family or personal history showed some marked peculiarity, by means of which they could be separated into more or less well-defined classes. The actual work of compiling the necessary data was commenced in 1903, and by the courteous permission and public-spirited action of the Directors we have now the pleasure of placing the main results of that investigation before the Institute. No claim is made in this Paper either to exhaustive analysis or to complete solution of the numerous and important problems that arise in practice, but it is thought that, at least, the results may form a useful aid to the Actuary in arriving at those conclusions which necessarily have to be formed—mainly from a priori reasoning—when risks come before him for adjudication.

The following paper is intended to deal in an indicative rather than an exhaustive manner with certain aspects of the Health Insurance Legislation which has come into force recently in this country, and to draw attention also to the main points of similarity and of distinction which a review of the more important analogous foreign schemes brings to light. Needless to say, there is no attempt to fan the dying embers of politico-journalistic controversy, and wherever an opinion is expressed it is given with such reasons as appear to the author to support it.

The age-distribution, and the rates of mortality, of the male and female population, recorded by the General Census for India, have been investigated by Mr. G. F. Hardy, in connection with the separate Censuses of 1881,1891 and 1901. The methods adopted in his investigations, and the resulting tabular figures. are set out in Mr. Hardy's Reports to the Indian Government on these several Censuses, and these are summarized, as regards the 1881 Census, in a Paper submitted by him to the Institute, and published in Vol. XXV of the Journal, p. 217 et seq.

In putting forward the present Paper I am somewhat dubious as to whether it is not almost necessary to apologise for bringing before the notice of the Institute a subject which forms but one of the many minor branches of our Science, and which, moreover, has had a certain amount of odium—much of which is undeserved—thrown upon it from time to time. So far, however, as the Institute is concerned, it is practically untrodden ground, and the consideration, therefore, of some of the new problems suggested by it may not be without interest.

The subject of my paper to-night is, I fear, outside the range of problems usually discussed at the Institute, but I do not ask any indulgence on this account as I am sure we all feel the importance of the question and its intimate bearing on the prosperity of the country. I only wish it was in more able hands.

I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that the dawn of civilization was heralded by the advent of a medium of exchange, and I suppose that one of the greatest boons to mankind that has happened since has been the further simplification of the exchange of commodities made possible by the use of credit.

I propose to divide the subject up under several headings, and to consider within the limits of time available the principal functions money has to fulfil both as the measure and standard of value, and as the medium of exchange, and in order to avoid ambiguity when using the word money, I will endeavour to confine my reference to coin and instruments of exchange which actually pass “current” from hand to hand without limitations, such as bank notes.