NOTTINGHAM YORKSHIRE - S. A. BENNETT (London), President. T. J. PLANT (Royal Exchange), Vice- F. B. TEALE (Commercial Union), W. A. HOLROYD (Sun), Huddersfield. Apologies were received from : Past Presidents-James Ostler (Northern), Manchester; B. H. O'Reilly (Patriotic), Dublin. Examiners-Charles Alcock (Royal), Liverpool; C. A. Bathurst Bignold (Norwich Union Fire), Norwich; J. A. Cook (Scottish Union and National), Edinburgh; A. H. Cowpe (Royal), Leeds; J. P. Eddison (North British and Mercantile), Leeds; A. S. Fraser (Commercial Union), Belfast; J. Gemmill (Royal Exchange), Glasgow; F. S. Goggs (Scottish Metropolitan), Edinburgh; W. Hartley (London and Lancashire Fire), Manchester; A. Hewat (Edinburgh Life), Edinburgh; C. E. Howell, LL.D. (Standard Life), Dublin; F. Izant (Phoenix), London; M. Pennant Jones (Atlas), London; O. D. Jones (London and Lancashire Fire), Leeds; W. S. Kinnear (Royal Exchange), Dublin; R. M'Connell (Royal), London; S. G. Moxey (Alliance), Bristol; P. L. Newman (Yorkshire), York; C. E. Noverre (Norwich Union), London; H. J. Pearce (Scottish Amicable), Glasgow; H. Pocklington (Commercial Union), Leeds; W. Richardson (Norwich Union), Edinburgh; J. B. Roberts (Sun Fire), Leeds; Robert Taylor (Liverpool and London and Globe), Leeds; A. Gibbon Thomson (Life and Health), Edinburgh; F. B. Wyatt (Clergy Mutual), London. After the adoption of the minutes of last Conference, the Secretary read the following REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1907. The meeting of the Conference in London last year marked an epoch in the history of this movement, and has given a decided impulse to the educational work which is the chief aim of the Federation. During the year under review, four new Institutes have been formed and will join the Federation at the forthcoming Conference. These areLondon, Liverpool, Cardiff, and Belfast. The general work of the Federation goes on progressively, and the reports to be submitted to the Conference give evidence of energy and progress. The Special Committee empowered to deal with the constitution of the Federation has focussed the opinions of the various Institutes embraced. The new draft Constitution now submitted forms a nucleus which, with legal assistance, can be put into such form as may lead to the eventual grant of a charter to our body. The report of the Executive Committee of Examiners, with the summary of results and the supplementary report on Life Examinations, go very fully into the educational scheme of the Federation, and it is not necessary in this report to do more than draw attention to certain points. The first is the increasing number of papers, which are a natural result of the scheme which has been gradually evolved. The papers themselves are well worth careful study, as illustrating especially the science of Fire Insurance. The labour incurred in preparing so many examination papers and in checking the answers of the candidates is increasing from year to year, and it may be necessary to take some steps to relieve the heavy burden on the Hon. Secretaries to the Examiners. The results of the Life Examinations are again disappointing, and the whole question may be deserving of the consideration of the Conference. The report of the Publications Committee, which is another. very important educational branch of the work of the Federation, demands careful consideration. The Journal which has recently been issued maintains its high character. The subject index, which was ordered last year, is a more elaborate undertaking than was originally anticipated; but when it is completed the compiler, Mr Archibald Blair, will be rewarded for his labours by the service he has rendered to the profession in preparing it. The Insurance Clerks' Orphanage has more than justified its formation by the excellent work which it has done, There are already 24 children receiving benefits from the Institution, 10 having been added during the past year. The accounts submitted to the Conference show that the total funds have been increased from £10,557 to £12,243. The finances of the Federation call for no special remark. The credit balance of £305 1s. 3d. is satisfactory, but in view of future developments it is no more than is necessary. The hearty thanks of the Executive are tendered to those who have, by the free expenditure of their time and energies, contributed in various ways to the advancement of the Federation. To the President for his invaluable services; to the Honorary Treasurer for his care of the financial interests of the Federation; to all the Examiners, to the members of the Examiners Committee, and especially to the Honorary Secretaries, for their respective services, increasing year by year; to Mr. Blair, Hon. Secretary of the Publications Committee, for the great labour he has bestowed in compiling the Journal; and lastly, to the Insurance press for their willing co-operation in making known from time to time the progress and work of our undertaking. The PRESIDENT (Mr. E. Roger Owen) then addressed the Conference as follows:-Gentlemen,-In submitting for your consideration the Address which on these occasions your President is called upon to make, I desire to acknowledge and thank you for the honour you have conferred upon me by placing me in the proud position which I find myself holding this day. It is a position which, I am bound to admit, has not been earned by any special services rendered by me to the common cause in which we are interested, and consequently the compliment which you have paid to me is all the more highly appreciated. When I accepted your invitation twelve months ago to serve as your President I fully anticipated a year of successful work on behalf of the Federation, but events over which none of us had any control, or could have possibly foreseen, have very materially modified the results which we then expected to attain. I believe, however, that at the close of this day's deliberations the aims and objects of the Federation of Insurance Institutes will have been carried forward another step which, we trust, will lead to a more perfect organization. Before proceeding further, I wish to acknowledge with grateful thanks the valuable assistance which I have received at the hands of my friend and immediate predecessor, Mr. Pipkin, and I am sure you will all join with me in expressing our sincere regret at his absence from our midst, whilst at the same time congratulating him most heartily on his recovery from his recent illness--an illness which I cannot help thinking was largely contributed to by the work which he so freely and generously undertook on behalf of Insurance Institutes and the Orphanage and similar objects. Mr. Pipkin's work for this Federation has been carried out with unflagging zeal and devotion, and it is to him in a very large measure that we are indebted for the interest taken in its affairs by many of the leading officials now associated with the work. We therefore extend to him our sympathy in his recent illness and our hearty congratulations on his recovery. In offering a hearty welcome to the Delegates and Officers of the Federation, I must express my regret that I do not enjoy the same privilege as all former Presidents have enjoyed. They have been able to welcome you at home in the city of their abode, and it would have given me much pleasure to have been in the same position, but I am sure that our Birmingham friends will not object to my acting on their behalf. We all look upon Birmingham, not as a provincial and local item, but as a great manufacturing and trading centre well known in, and in active contact with, all the markets of the world, and therefore I feel that I need not claim the right of domicile in extending to you the hearty welcome of Birmingham on the present occasion. And let me remind you that this is not the first time that you have met in Birmingham. The first Conference was held in Manchester in 1897, but that, I believe, was more in the nature of a preliminary meeting, at which it was decided to establish the Conference. It was at Birmingham in 1898 that the first practical and working meeting of the Conference was held, and it would be interesting and instructive to deal with the success which has attended the movement from that date until now, but it is not my intention to burden you with figures and statistics. Suffice it to say that the modest expectations which were then formed have been more than realised, and the prospects of the Federation at the end of its first term of ten years are brighter than the most sanguine of its promoters could have foreseen. Birmingham, as one of the most important Insurance centres, with its varied interests and its extensive experience and knowledge, has contributed in no small degree towards this result, and our thanks are due to those who have ungrudgingly and so ably assisted in the work. From the small beginnings thus originated in Manchester, and confirmed and established in Birminghan, has gradually developed an Institution which there is every reason to hope has a brilliant future before it. In nearly all the provincial centres Institutes have already been established, those at Liverpool, Belfast, and Cardiff having, as you are aware, been completed during the year. The Provinces have led the van, and London, having at last emerged from its attitude of repose brings up the rear. Under these circumstances, and to enable us more efficiently to cope with our extended needs, it has been deemed advisable to give this Federation a new Constitution, and the report of the Special Committee entrusted with the work will be submitted to you. Whilst finality has not been reached by the Committee, it is hoped that sufficient progress has been made to justify us in believing that at an early date the whole of the Insurance Institutes in the United Kingdom will be welded into one harmonious whole, with, I trust, much benefit to our common interests. The aims and objects of the Federation in the pursuit of those benefits are well known to you as being broadly divisible under two heads—Social and Educational. To say that business interests can be improved by social means is to state what may not be capable of exact mathematical demonstration, but who can doubt it? Each one of us who has had any experience of the events at which social intercourse has been provided by the various Institutes knows |