Gentlemen,—It is usual for your President, at the opening of a session, to address to the younger members of the Society some words of advice and encouragement, indicating the direction their studies should take to qualify them for the important positions which in time they may be called upon to fill. This has been so ably done by some of my distinguished predecessors in this chair, and the number of new entrants and students now bears so much less a proportion to the number of older members of the Society than formerly, that I intend to depart in great measure from this time-honoured practice, and to devote the opportunity with which I am favoured, mainly to an endeavour to add to the information you possess on a subject that I am sure is of interest to you, viz., The comparative amount of reserves obtained by valuations on different approved Tables of Mortality, and by different rates of interest.

It is my intention to place before you some results of valuations made by the Actuaries of The Scottish Widows' Fund to determine these differences on the actual business of that Society to 1873, which I think I may say contains risks of all possible durations in combinations that cannot differ much from those in other prosperous Offices, and I believe that I shall be able to show, that if the combinations did differ considerably, the results on a business of long standing would not be material. With this latter object I shall, so far as is practicable, compare the results of these valuations with the results obtained by Messrs. Manly, King, and Valentine, on valuations of the risks in hypothetical Offices so ingeniously and laboriously compiled by the two first-named gentlemen.