1899] Annual Report. 11 



In connexion with Finance there is one thing moi'e to mention. 



At the hist Annual Meeting it was decided by a majority of eleven 

 against ten "that the Council arrange during the coming year to 

 prevent expenditure on the Journals exceeding the amount allowed 

 by the Society in the estimates and report at the next Annual 

 Meeting." 



The Council accordingly have to report : — 



(1) That they have made arrangements that no paper shall be 



printed without an order in Council and without an 

 estimate of cost being prepared beforehand by the Secre- 

 tary responsible. By this means the Council will be kept 

 constantly informed of the financial position of the current 

 Journal. 



(2) That in Conference with the Baptist Mission Press they have 



obtained a I'eduction of five annas per page for printing 

 the Society's Journal and Proceedings, and a very consider- 

 able reduction in the rate for wrappers. 



(3) That they have approved the Secretaries' proposals for obvi- 



ating blank pages in the Journal and for making the 

 Accessions to Library, published in the Proceedings, shorter 

 and more compact. 



All these matters will be found more fully reported in the Abstract 

 of Proceedings of Council now before you. It is to be hoped that 

 Members will bear in mind that these changes add very considerably 

 to the work of the Honorary Secretaries. 



As a matter of fact, the increased supervision of the Council and 

 Secretaries has not yet shown any obvious result, though the results 

 will be manifest enough next year. The immediate results are probably 

 not quite what was expected : they show an increase, instead of a 

 decrease, in expenditure. 



This, as has already been explained, is due to the fact that in 

 re-arranging our affairs we have had to make good the deficiencies of 

 previous years. 



Our only alternative was to put a complete stop to all our publica- 

 tions except Journal Part III, which was obviously impossible. 



London Agency. 



The number of copies of the Journal, of the Proceeditigs, and of the 

 Bihliotheca Indica, sent to Messrs. Luzac and Co., during thi' year 1898, 

 for sale, were 380, 240 and 728, valued at £59-13-0 and £9-0-0, and 

 Rs. 580-14-0 respectively. 



