136 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Febi-uaiy 13, 1873. 



the next General Meeting. Ho did think that after the receipt 

 of the letter something to that ellect should be done. They 

 should recollect they were fighting the President and the Council 

 [time, and question]. Mr. Godson "was speaking nest of some 

 of the Members of Council, and 



Mr. PoWNAXL rose to a point of order, and said the question 

 before them was that of the Report, and the letter which had 

 been read [hear, hear]. 



Mv. GoDsox said they could not now discuss both, but to 

 follow out the observations he was making he might say that at 

 the last Meeting he showed that the geutlemeu who were re- 

 elected at one meeting were turned out the next — just like bull- 

 playing — one went out and the other went in [cries of "time"]. 

 Did Lord Londesborough ever attend a meeting ? 



The Chairman. — I am very sorry to interfere with Mr. God- 

 son, with whom I have had several passages in this room; but 

 there are gentlemen here who have brought forward matters 

 with extreme ability, intelligeuce, and moderation, and although 

 we are williug to wait until five o'clock to hear Mr. Godson's 

 strictures upon our personal wants, it is not fair to those gentle- 

 men who came down at a sacrifice of their time to hear a dis- 

 cussion upon their moderate proposals [cries of hear, hear]. 

 Let Mr. Godson reserve his strictures until the end of the Meet- 

 ing, and we will sit here and tight the battle out with him [hear, 

 and laughter]. 



Mr. Godson said that was not quite fair. He expected, as an 

 Englishman, fair play. He did not come there to ask a favour, 

 but simply stood upon his right. He would ask whether .1*100,000 

 was or was not in their property ? They had paid that for it, 

 and were the gardens to produce nothing ? By the charter the 

 centre arcade, and the conservatory, and the arcades ou each 

 side all belonged to the Society, and he would ask any gentle- 

 man whether, after paying i* 100,000, the Coimcil had not been 

 hardly dealt with, and whether the Council were not dealing 

 hardly with the Fellows ? That probably was the last time he 

 would come there, for practically the whole business was in the 

 hands of the Council. 



Mr. Claiison submitted that the only question before the 

 Meeting was the adoption of the Report. It would be exceed- 

 ingly inconvenient to deal with the Report and the letter together. 

 ^ The C hair man. — I quite agree with you, but I had a disinclina- 

 tion to stop anyone. I wished to go into the question of the 

 Report, and that was the reason I interfered with Mr. Godson. 



Mr. Montague rose, as a country member, to support the 

 amendment, because as they had heard of the great inconve- 

 nience suffered by the town members by those visiting the Ex- 

 hibition making use of the gardens, he wished to say it was also 

 a very great inconvenience to country members when they 

 came to London to find the Gardens flooded by persons who 

 paid for admission to the Exhibition. He did not say these 

 persons were not as good as themselves, but he thought it was 

 very unfair to the Fellows, and was a reason why the amend- 

 ment ought to be supported. The Report itself was not a satis- 

 factory one. It dealt with certain categories of Fellows, and 

 said that many joined through the love of flower shows. Well, 

 he was sure these had a gi-eater interest in horticulture than 

 those who joined for the International Exhibition privileges. 

 Then they were told in the Report that the Council had great 

 difficulty in satisfying all parties, but they all knew it was ex- 

 ceedingly difficult to satisfy even two parties. Last year, during 

 the flower shows, they were shut off from their own arcades, 

 and their ladies had to go through the rain instead of through 

 the arcades, which were erected so that ladies and delicate 

 people might have shelter when proceeding to their carriages. 

 He should not touch upon the letter because the Council had 

 not had time to look into it, but he would say that under this 

 proposal the Council would become almost the slaves of the Com- 

 missioners, because the latter were to undertake the duties of 

 the Council, maintain the Gardens, execute the repairs, and pay 

 the rates and taxes. The Council had got no hold over the 

 Commissioners [hear, hear]. The Commissioners could do 

 what they liked with the Gardens, and the Society would have 

 no control as to the expenditure [hear, hear]. Some day they 

 would find themselves shut out in the cold, and would have to 

 go to their gardens at Chiswick. The Commissioners were to 

 give the Society the half of what did not exceed i'4000, and the 

 Society was to give the Commissioners a sum of neai'ly i;'4000. 

 They must not forget that these Commissioners are the Com- 

 missioners of the Exhibition of 1851, and therefore when it was 

 alleged that it was strictly for the promotion of science, he 

 might say he did not think horticultural science would be pro- 

 m,oted by handing over the Gardens and their management to 

 the Commissioners [hear, hear]. In conclusion he begged most 

 cordially to support the amendment on the proposition that 

 the Report be received [cheers]. 



Mr. Harky Veitch asked for some explanation as to a state- 

 ment made by the Chairman at the last meeting as to the 

 management of the Society as it existed in 1862. 



Mr. Saundeks said he happened to have been Chairman upon 

 that occasion, and should like to say a few words upon the amend- 



ment. It began by stating that "this Meeting looks to the 

 Council to protect the Fellows in their rights and privileges, 

 and first to maintain the iise of all the arcades and the conser- 

 vatory as part of the Gardens." That was exactly the point 

 touched iipon by Mr. Veitch. The Council strongly felt last 

 year that tbe arcades had been taken away from the Fellows, 

 and that they should not submit to anything but the return of 

 the arcades for themselves again ; and the mind of the Council, 

 he was sure, was still this, that the arcades and the conservatory 

 should be reserved for the use of the Fellows. As he understood 

 it, the proposition of the Commissioners was that the FeUowa 

 should have the arcades, but if the former wished to put up any 

 article for exhibition — it might be horticulture — they might do 

 so in the arcades ; and there seemed no great objection to that. 

 Then as to excluding the pubUc from the Gardens except upon 

 an adequate payment, they must all recollect that they admitted 

 the public at all times on the payment of Is., and sometimes 

 for C(Z. ; and that when there were shows, in order to prevent a 

 rush a high price of admission was put on. Then as to main- 

 taining the use of all entrances and exits throughout the j'ear, 

 the difficulty was that the Commissioners having given them 

 six-months notice to give up the north-east and north-west 

 entrances, they had only one entrance at present, and they must 

 submit. However, there was a way to make another north-west 

 entrance. 



Sir C. Daubeney. — That is at the top of Queen's Gate ! 



Mr. Saunders believed it was so. As to the Gardens being 

 opened at an earlier and closed at a later hour, that was quite 

 within the reach of the Council, so long as the alteration met 

 the conveuience of the Fellows at large. These were the points 

 he wished to refer to, in order to show what the difficulties were 

 respecting the amendment [hear, hear]. 



A member trusted that the northern entrance, which, for 

 twelve months after the Exhibition, was used neither by the 

 Society nor the Commissioners, would not, after the next Exhi- 

 bition, be allowed to remain closed. 



Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P., both as a member of the Society 

 and one of the Exhibition Commissioners, felt certain that all 

 Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society were desirous of 

 putting themselves in the position of perfectly honest people 

 [a laugh], by trying to carry out, in the most complete way 

 possible, the conditions of the lease they had entered into. 

 They had entered into a lease, and they had engaged to pay 

 i'24O0 per annum as the rent of the Gardens. They had been 

 in operation for about twelve years, and they had only twice 

 paid the rent they were bound to pay the Commissioners by the 

 lease. Once it was paid in 1862, and once in 1871. These were 

 the only two years in which the rent was paid, and in both cases 

 it was paid through the Exhibition [hear, hear]. "There- 

 fore," said the honourable and learned gentleman, " do not let 

 us throw overboard the Exhibition as hostile to the interests 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society." The consideration of the 

 Commissioners, as landholders, was not to put an end to their 

 lease ; and the Society, on their part, must fulfil their obUga- 

 tions, and the only way they could do so was to make the Exiu- 

 bition pay their obligations for them. If they looked at the 

 matter a little more carefully they would see the interests of 

 the two bodies were perfectly identical. He could assure them, 

 as one of the Committee of Management of the Exhibition 

 who had been in constant communication with the Couucil of 

 this Society, that never did a body of gentlemen give more at- 

 tention to the interests of the Fellows than the Council had. 

 They had met the Commissioners in a spirit of fairness, but of 

 the utmost jealousy as regarded the interests of the Fellows. 

 He did not think the Meeting understood, as it was scarcely 

 possible they could understand, the meaning of the letter, and 

 he should therefore explain it in a few words. In the first 

 place, part of their subscrijitious were to be paid over to the 

 Commissioners, and these would be always swallowed up in 

 preserving the Gardens in an efficient state. On their side, the 

 Commissioners would give the Society .t'4400, which would en- 

 able them to pay their rent, and also pay-off their debenture 

 debt; and the effect would be that at the end of the lease the 

 Fellows would have become honest men — have paid their rent, 

 and paid their debenture debt, and have £20,000 profit in the 

 bargain [oh! oh!]. But really they would find his statement 

 exact and correct. Then in return for this the Commissioners 

 asked the Society to give the visitors to the Exhibition access 

 to the Gardens ; and if all this had not been done in a spirit of 

 fairness ou both sides, then, indeed, both sides had been mu- 

 tually mistaken. The Commissioners believed the interests of 

 the two bodies were identical ; they believed that the interests 

 of the Commissioners were bound-up with those of the Horticul- 

 tural Society ; and that if the latter did not succeed, then one 

 of the supports of the Commissioners was lost. Some of their 

 interests might not have exactly coincided, but a most genuine 

 spirit of fairness had existed, and the Council had to make 

 arrangements mutually beneficial for both bodies. The Society 

 was bankrupt, or would be but for this arrangement. 



A Fellow. — Xou made it banki-upt [loud cheers]. 



