,S'UPEPLVTESDES1' OF TIIE LxSuiL vc'E DEP:1 NT_71E.vT. xxxV

umns, forty-five years of the valuation table for whole life assurances by annual premiums, and the valuation tables for whole life assurances by the usual limited premiums (one, five, ten, fifteen and twenty years), complete.

While on this subject, it is in order to notice a statement reported by a Boston insurance journal of the 10th ult., to have been made by Mr. Merrill, the Insurance Commissioner of Massachusetts, on the 6th ult., before a legislative committee of that State, in reference to policy valuations by this Department. The published report referred to is as follows :

"The committee next considered amending section 11, of chapter 214, so that the Lsurance Commissioner could, at his discretion, accept the valuation of the policies of Life Insurance Companies of other States from the insurance departments of such States. This order was indiscretely introduced on the last day open to the presenting of orders and is not favored by the committee. No one appeared in its favor. Commissioner Merrill forcibly explained to the committee the character of the order and its dangerous nature. He stated that the Massachusetts Insurance Department was the only department in the Union which made and kept a complete valuation of the policies of Life Insurance Companies doing business in the State, so that at any time from year to year, by a comparison of figures, the ability of every Company to fulfill every individual con-tract could be ascertained. It would be a most dangerous thing, he stated, to enact this order, for the commissioner would be under obligations to accept the valuations of other State departments which were not responsible. Speaking of the method of valuation in the New York Department he said that the Companies furnislied lists of policies, which were valued, and returned, without any record being kept by the Department. Under this system a Company might infuse a fraud amounting to millions of dollars into the returns so made, which, under the Massachusetts system, could not be done. And therein this State stood as a safeguard between the Companies and the policyholders, for, through fraudulent management might deceive other departments, the fraud or discrepancy could not pass the comparisons made by this Department."