Mr. President,—It is in response to your invitation that I venture to submit to this Faculty a paper on the Influence of Occupation on Mortality. I have no fresh statistical observations to lay before you, but the task I have set myself is to elaborate the observations set out in the Supplement to the Registrar-General of England and Wales' Sixty-fifth Report, part II., a report which was published early this year. That report may rightly be described as the most important contribution to our knowledge of the subject which has yet been published, and it is thanks to the excellent tabulation of facts in it that I am able to deal further with them.

Before asking your attention to the subject proper of my paper, an examination of the results of the recent English study, I desire briefly to describe previous statistical observations on the subject, to indicate to you some of the difficulties and limitations in drawing satisfactory conclusions from these studies, and to explain the methods which have previously been used to overcome these difficulties, and methods which I now use for the first time.

During the past few years there have been published abroad the results of several important mortality investigations, to which comparatively little attention appears to have been directed here.

Of the investigations in question, the first place may be well assigned to that of the Gotha Life Office. It was the earliest published of them; is very complete, and some of the problems investigated therein are either new or have not hitherto been worked out so fully.

May it please Your Majesty: —

We, Your Majesty's loyal and dutiful subjects, the President, Vice-Presidents, Council, and Members of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland, incorporated by Royal Charter, desire humbly to approach Your Majesty with the expression of our profound sorrow at the lamented death of Our Gracious Sovereign King Edward the Seventh, and our respectful condolence in the bereavement with which it has pleased God to visit the Royal House.

The subject with which you have invited me to deal on this occasion is one of great importance, but it is hedged about by so many uncertainties that it is of more than ordinary difficulty. Many attempts have been made to solve the problems which arise from its consideration, and it may possibly be regarded as almost outworn; yet, with the growth of knowledge in the present day, it is one which permits useful reconsideration.

Insurance offices are so largely interested in Trust Estates, and so many Companies are now transacting the business of Executor and Trustee, that I feel no apology is required for these notes, even though the subject may be somewhat outside the range usually covered by papers read before the Faculty.

Up to the present this class of business has developed almost entirely in England, although a certain amount has been transacted in Ireland, and a small number of settlements made in Scotland have been passed over to Companies. This must be my excuse for having dealt almost entirely with English Law. There are, however, some notes as to the corresponding practice in Scotland, For these I have to thank my friend Mr. David W. Marwick, W.S., for whose assistance and advice I am most grateful.

The Science of Sociology is of comparatively recent origin, but its growth and evolution within the last few years have been remarkable, and in no branch of its efforts has this development been more marked than in that of “Social Insurances.” There have now been held no fewer than nine International Congresses dealing with this subject, productive of numerous papers and many voluminous reports. Economists and statesmen of all leading nations have been giving it their earnest attention for some years past, and in many countries the question has passed from the realm of theory into that of practical politics. Broadly viewed, the term “Social Insurance” may be taken to apply to all classes of insurance against contingencies to which the body politic is exposed; in a stricter sense it is now used to denote the insurance of the working classes against sickness, accident, invalidity, old age, unemployment, and kindred contingencies. With only one aspect of the problem have I ventured to deal in this paper—Insurance against Unemployment.

I esteem it a great privilege to have been invited to read a paper before the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland. It is many years since the distinguished honour of being elected a Fellow of the Faculty was conferred upon me, and I am afraid that I have not done directly very much to show my gratitude. The Faculty, however, is always indulgent, and will overlook every shortcoming.