PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 511 



is made for letiriug them on reduced oeiision before 60, the dif- 

 ference between the value of their pension rights to begin at 60 

 and the actual pension rights granted being supplied by the em- 

 ployer. 



In the keenly managed businesses of the future it looks as if 

 men over 60 will be found in service only in very exceptional cases. 



Experiences of the past as regards rate of retirement after the 

 optional age of retirement is past would appear to be unreliable 

 as indices of what will be experienced in future. 



Rates of contribution based upon these old experiences will 

 prove to be insufficient. 



It is a well recognised fact that the experience of any pension 

 fund as regards vnortality, invalidity, withdrawal, is peculiar to 

 itself — one fund differs from another in these respects in a way 

 sufficiently marked to render the use of one fund's experience in 

 valuing the liabilities under another in many cases quite mislead- 

 ing; this is more especially crue as regards the invalidity and 

 withdrawal elements. And when one turns it over in one's mind 

 it is only reasonable that such experiences should so differ. The 

 same mishap, e.g., the loss of a leg, would permanently incapaci- 

 tate a foreman carpenter or a railway guard from performing the 

 duties of his occupation, and would, therefore, unquestionably 

 qualify him for a breakdown pension in a railway company fund, 

 while such a mishap would not have the same effect if the sufferer 

 were a bank clerk. So, too, we should naturally look for a much 

 higher rate of withdrawal among members of a fund largely con- 

 sisting of operatives than among members of a fund comprised of 

 clerical or professional men. 



When a fund has been many years in existence it will have 

 accumulated its experience, but at the outset this experience is not 

 available. 



It is nov/ well ?nown that the recorded experience of a service 

 as regards sickness and withdrawal when no pension fund is in exist- 

 ence differs materially from its experience after the fund is in 

 existence — the invalidity experience is larger, the withdrawal is 

 lower. 



The increase in the invalidity rate is probably not an actual in- 

 crease, but merely a recorded increase — before the existence of the 

 fund cases of breakdown simply passed out of notice, not being 

 recorded, as there was no particular end to serve in so recording 

 them. The lowering in the withdrawal rate simply shows that the 

 object of the fund, namely, to give greater stability and continu- 

 ance among the staff, is being duly effected. 



