Thirtieth Annual Report.               5

a reduction of premium rates, in accordance
with the results of the experience of the
Company for the first fifteen years of its
history, the answer of the Board of Trustees
was as follows:

" The Company's experience has proved
beyond a doubt that these rates are safe, but
it would be neither wisdom nor econom}^ to
reduce the degree of safety enjoyed under
them by lowering the rate of premium, and
so imperil the cherished savings of eleven
thousand polic3^-holders, until a more ex¬
tended experience had satisfactorily demon¬
strated the entire security of such an im¬
portant step.

" The Company has existed but half a
generation, and the experience in the follow¬
ing half, with the increased age of the
parties now holding policies, must be had
before the true cost of assurance in this
country can be accurately determined.
This will be the more readily acquiesced in
by our assured, when it is considered that
any surplus resulting from the present rates
is again returned to the policy-holders."

In this conservative view the policy-hold¬
ers in general acquiesced; but the experi-