12th July. Uses it is really losing its vitality from some internal malady, largo Life Insurance Company must grow} larger and larger year by year. If i business is conducted with ordinary care, its surplus must grow and with it the security it offers to those who think of insuring their lives. Every one who is insured acts as a gratuitous advertisement and attracts new "lives," and thus such an institution as the Standard Life Assurance Company is a veritable snowball. 'I'he accounts it has just published for the year ended on the 15th November last show a larger business with larger assets than ever before, and what is most important is, that the report shows that the Company did a larger new business in 1892 than ever before, notwithstanding the active competition with which it has had to contend. At the annual meeting of the Company held on the 11th of April last the Chairman said: "I would congratulate the proprietors, first of all, on the vitality which the Company exhibits as judged by the large and increased amount of new business reported,—business brought together in a purely legitimate manner, and not -by any system of lavish commissions or cutting down of rates to a dangerous extent. The new sums assured exceed one-and-three-quarter millions and, as nothing succeeds like success, I may inform you that, so far as the present year has gone, the promise is still more hopeful, The ratio of expenses and commission to income has decreased during the year. It will be remembered that allusion was made at the general meeting last year to the matter of expenses, and it was explained that they had been temporarily swelled beyond what was ordinary through the cost of establishing new branches or agencies in one or two localities, a policy which must at first be of necessity a cause of some unusual expenditure. These new agencies, which were enumerated in last year's report, are, on the whole, making good progress, and promise in time to be valuable contributors to the Company's revenue and resources, but the initial expenditure still continues to be felt in a modified degree. The policy of judicious extension the Board consider to have been wisely determined upon, but the largeness of the field covered will not of itself secure success, and the Company's steady progress in public favour is owing, I think, in great part to its position and character, and, above all, to the fact, that the Directors have always endeavoured to treat all their constituents with perfect equity, and when requisite, with every leniency and consideration possible."
The Standard has been so long and so widely popular here, and has so many constituents in China, that we make no excuse: for devoting so much space to a consideration of its annual accounts. If we had any doubt as to the extent of English thrift that is diverted into Life Assurance, it would be dissipated when we read' that the amount proposed for surance to the Standard alone in 1892, in 3,918 proposals, was £2,295,525. As The Review of the 31st May points out, the Standard showed its strength and the caution it observes, by rejecting proposals to the amount of about half a million sterling, the amount of assurance for which new policies; 3,455 in number, were actually granted, being £1,766,842, making the amount of assurances accepted during the last five years £7,907,018. The annual revenue was £1,022,610; the total assets £7,741,654; and the amount of assurances in force on the 15th of November last £22,438,181. he total funds increased during the year by £52,000, or a thousand pounds a week, although the death roll for the year was along one, owing to the influenza at home in the early part of 1892; and the amount of claims paid is the largest in the Company's records, The mortality experience of the Company, both at home and abroad, continues, however, to keep well within the tables of expectation on which the calculations ure based." As long as this is the case, a Compuny that is honestly managed, and that does not waste its income in charges and commissions, must be prosperous.
Home Rule Bill, like king Charles's It is rather amusing to find the
head, bobbing up in the Standard's report, It was objected a little while ago to many of the English Insurance Companies, that they had a lange portion of their assets in Irish mortgages, and that the chance of recovering either the principal or interest was very slim. The Standard's report reassuringly states that the income from the Irish mortgages continues to increase, "the rate of interest received being higher than that realised from the whole of the Company's funds in aggregate." It continues: "With so favourable a record, the Board would not have considered it necessary to refer again to these investments on the present occasion, had it not been for the fact that the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament, again opens up the question of Trish Iand, and renders it necessary for vigilance to be exercised on the part of those whose interests are threatened."
There is one point more to note. The home business of the Standard continues about stationary, having
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.