160 



JOURNAL OP HORTICOLTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



f Febrcary 20, 1873. 



[Hear, hear.] To do all these things would require time, 

 because a considerable majority of the meeting had not mastered 

 the elements of the case. Like Mr. Godson he had looked at 

 the balance-sheets — one showing ^.'13,000 odd and the other 

 i£15,000 odd — and he required time to know what they meant. 

 There could be no good reason for taking the Fellows by surprise. 

 If the Commissioners wanted an answer immediately, in order 

 to prepare their programme, they should be told the Society 

 required time ; and if they could not prepare their programme, 

 it was no affair of the Society. He begged to move that the 

 Meeting be adjourned to that day week. [No, and time.] 



The amendment having been seconded, was put to the Meet- 

 ing by the Chairman, and declared lost. 



Sir CouTTS Lindsay, Bart., expressed his regret that the 

 Council should have caused such a feeling amongst the deben- 

 ture-holders. He thought that, as had been already expressed, 

 it was a great mistake for the Council not to have given all the 

 debenture-holders due warning and information of what was 

 going to take place [hear, hear]. The Fellows had been, in a 

 certain sense, trapped into a course they did not think right. 



The Chaieman then put the motion that the Report of the 

 Council be not adopted. 



When the question was put. Sir A. Sl.ade, who was sitting in 

 the front seats, stood up, and loudly addressing the Meeting (to 

 which the Chairman was only partially audible), said to them a 

 couple of times " Hands up against tlie Council." 



The result of the show of hands as decided by the Chairman 

 was as follows — For Sir A. Slade's motion, 80 ; against it, 14. 

 Majority in favour of motion, 72. The result of the voting was 

 received with loud and prolonged cheers. 



Sir A. Sl.\de, addressing the Chairman, said. Have you any 

 announcement to make to us ? 



The Chaibman. — I have no doubt the Council will place their 

 resignations in your hands. Allow me to say I can make no 

 proposition as a Council until the Council meets, when you will 

 learn what our feeling is on the expression of opinion of the 

 Meeting to-day, and that will be as soon as we can meet 

 together. 



Sir A. Sl.ade. — A great many Fellows have come here to-day 

 from a great distance at a great expense. When are we to have 

 an answer ? 



Several Fellows. — Adjourn for an hour [no, no]. 



The G h A IRMAN. — No. The Council will take time to consider 

 the question. 



A Fellow remarked that when they had upon the Council a 

 body of gentlemen of such ability, and who had paid such at- 

 tention to the affairs of the Society, they could not ask -them to 

 give an immediate answer to the vote just passed, which he 

 assumed they took as a vote of want of confidence [hear, hear]. 

 It was a vote vei-y warmly expressing that the majority of the 

 Society did not join in the views expressed by the Council. 

 There were many gentlemen, no doubt, ou the Council who 

 would be inclined to give a further consideration to the matter 

 [order, and chair]. 



Sir A. Slade. — I heard Lord Henry Lennox say the Council 

 would resign. 



Mr. Kelk. — We are only a part of the Council, and it would 

 not be right for us to speak for our colleagues. As we of the 

 Council present feel, I can say we will place our resignation in 

 the hands of the Society [cheers]. 



Mr. Lindsay. — The Council is composed of gentlemen who 

 will not play any tricks [hear, hear]. And I shall now move a 

 vote of thanks to the Chairman for the manner in which he has 

 conducted the proceedings on the present occasion [hear, hear]. 



Mr. Hakdcastle, M.P., cordially seconded the motion and 

 hoped the Chairman in acknowledging the vote would pledge 

 himself and his colleagues to resign their positions in the 

 Council of the Royal Horticultural Society [no, cheers, and 

 much interruption]. He did not mean tliat they should resign 

 as individuals, but as a body [no, no, and hear hear], because if 

 individual members resigned the gentlemen now present could 

 elect persons to take their places, so that they would not have 

 the old Council there again [cries of adjourn for a fortnight]. 



A FELLO^v proposed that Sir A. Slade and Mr. Hai'dcastle, 

 M.P., should be appointed as a Committee, to confer with the 

 Council [no, no]. 



The vote of thanks was unanimously carried. 



The CH.UKMAN. — Let me just bring you to common sense. 

 The affairs of the Society must go on. It is quite right and 

 proper we, as a Council, should resign ; there is no alternative. 

 In the meantime something should be done to see that the 

 affairs of the Society go on properly. It would not be right for 

 ns to say, " We all resign, and do your best " [hear, hear]. W'e 

 will do our liest uutU you find some one to take in hand the 

 reins of government of the Society. We have all done our best, 

 and we will tontinue to do so until a general meeting is called, 

 when you will have to elect as a Council those men who will do 

 what is rigiit and proper in your minds. Tliat is the common- 

 sense view of the matter. We will still meet as a Council, and 

 afterwards you can take your own steps to carry ou the affairs 



of the Society. I am very much obliged for the vote of thanks 

 passed tome [hear, hear]. 



Mr. Allan Bbuce asked the Chairman whether he would 

 undertake to send by post to every Fellow an accovint of what 

 had taken place at that Meeting, of the result at which the 

 Council had arrived, and the object for which the next meeting 

 would be summoned ? 



Sir A. Slaee. — Yes, three days before the meeting. Say yes 

 or no. 



The Chaieman. — We have some 3.500F ellows ; if this expendi- 

 ture is to be undertaken, of course, it must be. 



Sir A. Sl.cde. — You are bound to do it. 



The Chaikiian. — I will pledge myself to this : — As soon as the 

 Council has met and come to a decision to resign their position 

 into your hands, every one of the Fellows shall have notice of 

 it. [Hear, hear.] 



Sir A. Slade. — At the next meeting ? 



The Chaiajian. — We shall have nothing to do with that — we 

 shall resign. 



Sir A. Slade. — Then we shall be without a head. 



Mr. Bruce said what he understood was that merely the 

 result of the Meeting would be communicated, and the resigna- 

 tion papers thereupon, and the Council would then cease to 

 exist. The Society would then be a body without a head ; and 

 it would be very awkward for them to be placed so. The only 

 alternative would be to elect some body, including several 

 Members of the present Council, to represent them. 



The Chaieman. — You have mistaken me. You said that 

 vii-tually you would be without a head, but the fact is, your 

 Council will not cease their action until you have appointed 

 another. 



Sir A. Slade. — Then you will call another meeting ? 



The Chairman. — That will be the result of it. 



The Meeting then closed. 



The resignation of the Council is an event in the history of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society, unprecedented in the long 

 period of seventy years during which the Society has existed. 

 Those who read carefully the ample report we were enabled to 

 furnish of the Annual Meeting held last week, might have 

 anticipated some such result to take place at the adjourned 

 Meeting held on Tuesday last ; and though the event took many 

 by surprise, to those who have watched the course of events for 

 some years past, the wonder has been that the crisis has not 

 happened long ago. There are bounds beyond which endur- 

 ance cannot go, and the propositions submitted by the Royal 

 Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851 to the Council of the 

 Society, and which were published in our last week's report, 

 were of such a nature as to goad the Society into a condition 

 of indignant rebellion. 



Ever since the connection between the Royal Commissioners 

 and the Society was established, the relation between th.e two 

 has been one of exaction and oppression on the one hand, and 

 of abject concession on the other. The life of the Society 

 since 1864 has been a struggle for existence from a cunningly 

 conceived design to absorb it into the South Kensington system. 

 How succeeding Councils could have been cajoled or fasci- 

 nated as they have been into some of the most absurd and 

 suicidal arrangements is beyond the power of ordinary mortals 

 to divine ; but that such has been the case was so apparent to 

 all who cared to watch the progress of events for some years 

 past, that no other result than that which has at last come 

 could reasonably have been expected. 



Where the late Council has been manifestly in the wi'oug is 

 in accepting as a foregone but erroneous conclusion that *' the 

 Society is bound hand and foot " to the Royal Commissioners, 

 and that whatever propositions emanated from them, no 

 matter how adverse they had been to the interests of a Society 

 founded for the advancement of horticulture, and for that pur- 

 pose alone, they were either bound to accept them or to submit to 

 the extinction of the Society as the only alternative. In this 

 respect we have always regretted that the Council did not act 

 with greater decision and more ii\depeudence. ."Vud yet perhaps 

 as individuals the Council were not altogether so culpable in 

 this respect as may at first sight appear. The mode which 

 has obtained of late years of electing and re-electing the same 

 men is entirely responsible for this — there has been so little 

 infusion of new blood on the Council for many years past in 

 the shape of working members. Any new names that have 

 appeared have been representatives of men who attended 

 the meetings only in few instances, and the business and 

 interests of the Society were entrusted to the care of the same 

 individuals from year to yeai' who were imbued with those 

 foregone conclusions. 



Nothing could have been more objectionable in a popular 



