Proceedings of tlie Society. 3.")0 



to him that the reason why the Society was not popular was first 

 because it was poor, and secondly because there were very few people in 

 the colony who really took an interest in it. It was perhaps a hard 

 thing to say. but the more one went about Demerara the more one was 

 asked to take part in if he might say so, public life, the more it struck 

 him that few T people really cared for the colony and were anxious to 

 support it. Perhaps it was an age where if he might say so. sentiment 

 had disappeared, but it seemed to him that the Royal Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society should be supported liberally and ungrudgingly by 

 every citizen of Georgetown. He would suggest that one way to 

 improve matters would be to write to all those people who ought to be 

 members and were not, and publish their answers. 



Mr. Nunan said he had some statistics which he had asked Mr. 

 Rod way to make out for him and which he had intended to hand to Mr. 

 Garnett but did not because he was late. His idea was that the leading 

 members of this community who were not members of the Society would 

 not amount to more than half-a-dozen and they would include some of 

 the biggest salaried persons in the colony and one or two dignitaries who 

 ought to knovv better. As to writing to those who were not members 

 that was done two and a half years ago and met with a magnificent 

 response. He came now to a little history of the Society. The begin- 

 ning of 1910 found it faced with the opposition of a free library and in 

 1910 it lost about 100 members and associates, so that towards the 

 middle of 1910 it had about 331 members. At the end of 1910 the 

 directors having put their shoulders to the wheel and everybody else 

 having helped thej- put it back to 432. Next year it was 495, and the 

 next 494, and then last year 478. But the better class and wealthier 

 people had in many cases moved away and not been replaced. He did 

 not think the membership could safely be got far beyond 500. In one 

 case he did not see any necessity for popularising the Society ; it should 

 not be made too cheap, and he did not think that the Water street clerk 

 who did not come in at So would come in at S4, and he would not be 

 worth having. The Society never passed 500 until the year before last, 

 and several times during that year it went up to 516. The normal 

 membership was 410, but he thought they could put it back to 500, but 

 not beyond. What else did they do ? 



Value for Money. 

 They were bankrupt in the middle of 1910. They put the revenue 

 up to $5,434 the next year, the next it was $5,346, and in 1913 

 $4,762. How did they do it ? By giving value for the money. Every 

 one who paid $10 or $5 got value many times over for it. The 

 library as far as possible was brought up to date as far as the monthly 

 arrivals went. They spent about £100 in getting modern classical novels. 

 They revised the magazines and made economies where possible. Mr. 

 Garnett pointed to one serious defect in their equipment and that was 

 the library. They thought two years ago that they could meet that by 

 making an appeal to the absentee proprietors. They had done very little 



