A life assurance office with a respectable proprietary and a paid-up capital, is by virtue of the English law of unlimited partnership as safe as any company can be, so far as the assured is concerned; and as the chief end and aim of government interference would be the safety of the policy-holder, it follows that new legislation on this subject should in fairness only affect new proprietary companies, to prove the reality of their capital, and so protect the public from such men as those who have lately been unkennelled. But though a marked difference may be claimed by the respectable proprietary companies, and though a distinction might perhaps in strict justice be drawn betwixt those with a subscribed capital and those which have only their first years’ premiums, less their expenses, to pay the claims against them, it would perhaps be politic on the part of government to include all; and it would be still more politic on the part of the old proprietary offices to state their readiness to concur in any plan which might be for the benefit of the body corporate, because any legislative measure, to be effective as well as protective, must be general. While it must be such as will be readily acquiesced in by the older offices, it must not be made unpleasant to the new: it must be at once general in its application and strict in its inquiries. If it appear inquisitive, it must not be inquisitorial; and, if possible, the common consent of all should be obtained. The actuaries, who are intelligent and accomplished gentlemen, must be propitiated, for they are in possession of a somewhat occult science, having justly the ear, the confidence, and the respect of their directors. And when it is borne in mind that these directors embrace, as a body, the first men in the city of London, that they possess a commercial, social, and, not seldom, a political consideration, it follows, that to conciliate them is as necessary to the well-being of any measure, as to conciliate the actuary is necessary to the co-operation of the directors. There is no profession in which subordinates are so respectfully regarded, for the actuary is master of a science in which the director is generally deficient; and knowledge, in this case, as in others, is essentially power. If then it would be wise and prudent for government to interfere with all, and at the instance of all, the next consideration is how to produce the greatest amount of good with the least amount of evil: and one of the essential conditions is, the clearest information published in the briefest form to give a correct estimate of the position of an office. Tabular statements may prove whatever the actuary pleases, and may be made to mean anything and mystify anybody. One concise form, therefore, so clear that he who runs may read, a form which can deceive no one and which all can understand, will be necessary.