XVI 



i. That the rate of subscription for all Fellows resident 

 beyond a radius of 15 miles from Hobart be reduced from £1 

 los. to £1 per annum. 



2. That the utmost econoiny be observed in regulating the 

 expenditure already authorised, and that no additional expenses 

 be incurred without the sanction of the Society. 



3. That any balance available out of the income of the 

 current year be expended on the binding of the Library set 

 of annual volumes for the last nine years, on the binding of 

 other important publications now useless for purposes of re- 

 ference, and on the purchase of recent works in various 

 branches of science, so far as may be found practicable. 



4. That Fellows be requested to use every effort to so far 

 increase the membership of the Society as to make it possible 

 to effect a general reduction in the rate of the annual subscrip- 

 tion at the end of 1909. 



Mr. T. Stephens, as Chairman of the Committee, moved the 

 adoption of the Report, to give Fellows present an opportunity 

 of expressing their opinions on the recommendations. 



Mr. R. M. Johnston thought that original papers read 

 should see the light of day as early as possible. He would like 

 to have an opportunity of looking into the report at his leisure, 

 and for that reason moved that it be laid on the table. The 

 motion was seconded by Mr. Brettingham Moore, but was 

 subsequently withdrawn. 



Mr. Stephens said that the Council had now made ample 

 provision for the publication of original papers, and no such 

 trouble as had occurred in the past was likely to happen 

 again. 



The President said that the immediate question before the 

 meeting was whether the Fellows and others interested in the 

 Society should be given an opportunity of carefully consider- 

 ing -the report and arriving at a decision thereon after delibera- 

 tion. So far as he was concerned it would give him pleasure 

 to be present at a special meeting at which this report might 

 be fully considered. It was, no doubt, a very important decision 

 that the Society was asked to give, and should, if possible, be 

 Unanimous. This Society had survived for two, and very nearly 

 three generations. That was a great record for things Aus- 

 tralian. It fulfilled a real need in the community, by offering 

 a non-political, non-sectarian, and genuinely scientific centre 

 where original thought could find a sympathetic atmosphere. 

 They could not expect that original thought would be forth- 

 coming with the regularity of blackberries in autumn, and there 

 must be ups and downs in the volume of interest, both as re- 

 gards the readers of scientific papers and those who wished to 

 listen to them. It should be their object not only to keep the 

 Society alive, but to keep it alive in accordance with the spirit 

 and needs and claims of the times. The amount of subscription 

 was certainly a factor in that co-ordination, and he observed 



