Marcu 24, 1923] 
NATURE 
405 

By Clause 9 of the ‘‘ Fees (Increase) Bill,’”’ the 
Government proposes to confer upon the Trustees 
of the British Museum a power which they have 
never sought and which, we are certain, they do not 
desire—a power to charge fees for admission to the 
Exhibition Galleries both at Bloomsbury and South 
Kensington. Of course, if the power is granted by 
Parliament, the Treasury will take good care that the 
Trustees exercise it. The precise proposal is to 
charge a fee of 6d. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 
and Friday. How much better will anyone be for 
this? The probable receipts seem to us to be 
ridiculously overestimated by the Geddes Committee, 
since they only allow for a reduction in the number 
of visitors of less than one-half. Speculation on 
such a matter is rather idle. We know only that a 
charge of 6d. on three week-days at the Victoria and 
Albert Museum brought an average yearly return 
of 1ro00o/, Against a possible income of, say, I200l., 
have to be set expenditure on the installation of 
turnstiles and a considerable diminution in the 
receipts from the sale of publications, which has been 
greatly extended of late in bothsections of the Museum. 
But this sort of haggling is beside the mark. - The 
condemnation of this retrograde proposal depends 
on no nicely calculated less and more, but on the 
disservice that will thereby be done to popular educa- 
tion in its widest and highest sense. The nation will 
lose and the Museum will lose, for we may be sure 
that gifts in money and in kind will not flow so 
readily to a half-closed establishment. It seems, too, 
as though the Government would lose whatever 
popular support it now possesses. The British 
Museum has become in a very real and living sense 
a national possession, and the nation will refuse to be 
robbed of its free enjoyment. 
Tue reluctance to discuss the monetary value 
of their services is a tradition which dies hard among 
the brain-workers in this country and abroad, and 
is in large measure responsible for the unenviable 
position of many salaried workers during and since 
the War. In the legal and medical professions, 
which occupy a legalised privileged position and are 
further safeguarded by the needs and the attitude 
of the community, professional unity is possible and 
demands for improved conditions of service and 
better remuneration for these classes are generally 
successful. The success of medical men in this 
country in particular has given an impetus to other 
professional workers towards combination, and 
various organisations now exist having for their 
avowed object the improvement of the economic 
position of the professional classes. In France, 
after approaching first the Confédération Générale 
du Travail, and later the General Association of 
Employees—both organisations of manual workers— 
the brain-workers have decided to form their own 
independent Confédération des Travailleurs Intel- 
lectuels. It is already in a position to exert con- 
siderable influence in the Chamber of Deputies and 
the Senate, and its success has provoked the creation 
NO. 2786, VOL. 111] 
: Current Topics and Events. 
of similar bodies in several other European countries. 
In this country there is an organisation, the National 
Federation of Professional Technical, Administrative, 
and Supervisory Workers, founded in 1920, having 
similar aims. Hitherto it has not been able to obtain 
the support of the medical, legal, engineering, teach- 
ing, or scientific associations. These may join the 
federation later, but, in the first instance, they will 
probably find it better to form their own federation. 
The time is certainly opportune for a movement to 
be made in this direction. 
THE sum of 1,000,000/. provided for agricultural 
research and education under the Corn Production 
Acts (Repeal) Act, 1921, has now been provisionally 
allocated for the furtherance of various schemes, 
and the details are outlined in the current issue of 
the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture. The 
suggested grants cover a wide field, and in several 
cases are intended to be supplemented by certain 
moneys raised by the institutions benefiting therefrom. 
Dairying, silver-leaf research, and fruit growing are 
to be aided in various centres by the provision of 
building and maintenance funds, and a scheme is 
under consideration for the establishment of an 
Animal Pathology Research Station at Cambridge 
University. Support is also being given to the 
National Poultry Institute scheme, with special 
provision for research in various directions, for 
commercial experiments and for higher instruction 
in poultry keeping. On the educational side additions 
are being made to the research scholarships and 
travelling fellowships, the advisory services are to 
be completed and strengthened, while a considerable 
sum has been provisionally allocated for grants in 
aid of capital expenditure at university departments 
of agricultural colleges. County agricultural educa- 
tion will benefit in a similar way. The approximate 
allocation under the above headings is as follows : 
Research and Advisory work, 465,o00/.; Higher 
Agricultural Education, 84,o00/, ; County Agricultural 
Education, 170,000/. ; Scholarships for the sons and 
daughters of Agricultural workers, 117,000/. ; Miscel- 
laneous Schemes, 74,000/. Some re-arrangement of 
the above sums may, however, prove to be necessary 
as the schemes are more fully investigated and begin 
to be worked out. 
THE Retail Pharmacists’ Union, in a recent an- 
nouncement with regard to the subject of the accurate 
dispensing of medicines, describes the training re- 
quired for the profession of pharmacy. The announce- 
ment is, however, headed with the words “ The 
Chemist,’’ and this has led Mr, A. Chaston Chapman, 
president of the Institute of Chemistry, to suggest 
again that the time has come for the pharmacist to 
relinquish the use of the term ‘“ chemist ’’ in favour 
of those who definitely practise chemistry. Mr. 
Chapman points out that ‘‘ the Institute of Chemistry, 
as the representative chartered professional body of 
chemists, numbers upwards of 4000 fellows and 
associates, whose qualification demands a four years’ 
