The Secretary stated that he had just had placed in his hands a 

 letter from Messrs. ConstalDle in which they objected strongly to a 

 paragraph in the Minutes of the 1904 Congress, which stated that the 

 delay in the issue of Mr. Gomme's Index and certain faults found with 

 the Annual Index arose from their neglect : they requested a correction 

 of this statement, which they regarded as prejudicial to them. 



The Hon. Secretary said that he had not intended to impute wilful 

 or deliberate neglect, and the expression was perhaps ill-chosen. Great 

 complaints constantly reached him as to the non-appearance of the 

 General Index, and he had made frequent representations by letter, 

 and once on the instruction of the Standing Committee by interview, 

 to Messrs. Constable, to whom the list of 300 subscribers and some 

 paid-up subscriptions had been made over. 



It appears that Mr. Gomme has not been able to complete a 

 necessary part of the indexing that involves considerable clerical work, 

 and that he is unwilling to incur expense on what has been an exceed- 

 ingly heavy, and promises to be a quite unremunerative, task. The 

 Hon. Secretary had thought that all further arrangements lay between 

 Messrs. Constable and Mr. Gomme, but apparently Messrs. Constable 

 do not consider that their responsibility begins until the whole of, 

 Mr. Gomme's copy is in their hands. Accepting this view as correct, 

 the Secretary must of course withdraw the imputation of neglect and 

 express his regret to the Congress that he had misunderstood the 

 position and allowed so much time to pass without taking further steps 

 to secure publication. It was clear that the Committee must consider 

 the position of the Congress in the matter and bring it to some 

 conclusion. 



With regard to faults in the Annual Index, the complaints are 

 generally of the non-appearance in the Index of certain transactions. 

 Mr. Gomme, who prepares this for Messrs. Constable, states, howe\'er, 

 that all volumes that are completed and published by a certain annual 

 date are included in that year's index and that othei's published sub- 

 sequently are put into the next index. Transactions issued in parts 

 are never indexed until the completion of the volume. There appears 

 therefore no reason to impute neglect to Messrs. Constable on this 



Mr. Gomme states that hitherto only the names of those Societies 

 have been printed in the preface whose transactions are actually 

 included in the particular index. He has promised in future to give 

 the names of all Societies whose works he undertakes to index. If 

 nothing of theirs is given in the body of any index it will be because 

 nothing complete has been published within the period. 



Lord Balcarres then altered the paragraph in the Minutes of 1904 

 to read as follows : — " The Secretary explained that complaints had 

 been made of the delay in publishing Mr. Gomme's General Index, 

 and he was authorized to write to the publishers and endeavour to 

 secure the prompt publication of the General Index." 



