Any attempt to cover in a single paper the whole field of the present and future problems which the placing on the Statute Book of the “Local Government and other Officers’ “Superannuation Act 1922”, presents to the actuary would be a highly ambitious task, and as so many of these problems will be solved far more readily and more accurately a few years hence’ than can be the case to-day, I have deliberately limited my comments on the present occasion to two important aspects of these questions. The first section of the paper gives an explanatory summary of the main provisions of the Act, so far as they affect our profession : the second section is an attempt to devise a simple method of valuation, suitable for adoption in the case of a small body of benefit members, where the ordinary valuation procedure, based on salary averages, does not seem to me to be applicable at the outset.

Although many tables have been graduated in order to study the trend of mortality or express it mathematically, the real object of graduation in practical actuarial work is to provide a sufficiently smooth series of rates of mortality to avoid inconvenience in the calculation of monetary values, particularly perhaps, in the case of joint life functions. The importance of making tables available for practical calculation as soon as possible after the expiration of the period to which the rates of mortality relate necessitates the postponement of any attempt at an extensive mathematical study of the material and we feel that the alternative lies between (1) the use of the rates of mortality already found from the material adjusted as little as is necessary and (2) a Gompertz or Makeham graduation.

In October 1921, I had the honour of submitting to the Institute the results of an investigation into the mortality experienced by life tenants under reversions (J.I.A., vol. liii, pp. 1-42).

The investigation led to certain interesting and, I hope, useful conclusions, among them being the fact that there was no evidence that vendors of reversions exercise selection against purchasers to a significant extent and that in consequence the mortality of life tenants could be sufficiently represented by a full aggregate table.