§ SIR HENRY TYLERasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he will consider what measures can be adopted to render the Return of "Life Assurance Companies," as annually issued, more valuable, by avoiding to a greater extent discrepancies of dates in the Returns, visible in the Blue Book issued to Members on the 17th May instant, as follows:—(1.) In the "Annual Returns" (Schedules 1 to 4, sections 5 and 6), taking care, even if the 1063 issue be made later, that the majority of them may be (as stated in the heading) for the previous year, in place of being (as they are in fact) forty-eight for the previous year, and sixty-six (or the great majority) for the year before; (2.) In the case of the "Valuation and Statistical Returns" (Schedules 5 and 6, sections 7 and 8), that the compilations embrace more recent periods than those in the Blue Book referred to, varying, as they do, from 1872, and, in the case of twenty-seven Companies, not being later than 1876?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAIN,in reply, said, he was afraid that it would not be possible to make the changes suggested. The accounts of Life Assurance Companies were made up to different dates; and the Act gave a period of nine months during which the Return might be made to the Board of Trade. Moreover, some of the Companies made quinquennial Returns; and in others the period was as long as 10 years. It would, therefore, be impossible to have all the Returns made up to the same date, unless the publications were kept back so long as to be practically of little value.