REPORT OF THE COUNCIL, 1931-32 xxiii 



The weakness of the Association's finance lies in the basis of its grants to 

 research, taken together with the fluctuating financial character of its 

 meetings. The allocations to research should not be granted on a year-to- 

 year consideration of available balances, because those balances do not 

 themselves result from a period of adequate length to reflect real availability. 

 Allocations on the principle of real availability should be based upon a 

 reasonable cycle of the Association's normal activities and expenses of 

 meetings. 



In my judgment, therefore, policy should be shaped upon a provisional 

 five-year budget as the minimum period. This leads me to the suggestion 

 that for the period of the next five years we should create two definite 

 charges on the expenditure side, viz., £400 to the Research Fund (in 

 addition, that is, to the Caird Fund) and £500 to Contingency Fund. . . . 

 Expenditure on research [from general funds] should be definitely con- 

 trolled by the General Committee on a recommendation from the Council 

 in its Annual Report, and might be more or less than that amount in any 

 particular year. Council might conveniently add to its recommendation 

 a statement of the sum which it is prepared to allocate from the Caird Fund. 

 ... It should be a matter for the Council to lay down whether the true 

 function of the Association is not rather the starting, launching or promotion 

 of particular pieces of research, than the quasi-permanent endowment or 

 maintenance of them. In some respects its past policy has fallen between 

 two stools ; it has not given those advantages which a really assured 

 permanence of funds may confer but it has allowed a perpetuating system 

 of old claims to take the bloom off its opportunity for substantial aid to 

 pioneer work. 



The Contingency Fund would be definitely regarded as an insurance 

 against small, or very unprofitable meetings. . . . The adoption of a policy 

 of budgeting ahead for a period of years, and not allowing each year's 

 balances to be fortuitously linked up with the research work, is the essential 

 feature of reform. 



The Council have adopted, and recommend to the General Committee, 

 the above proposal that for the next five years not more than ;{^400 should 

 be spent annually from general funds on grants for research, and that an 

 annual sum of ;^500 should be placed to a contingency fund. 



The Council are of opinion that the true function of the Association, in 

 making grants to research committees, is the initiation of particular pieces 

 of research rather than their quasi-permanent endowment. The Council 

 recall that this view is implicit in the resolution of the General Committee, 

 under which grants from general funds in aid of research were first 

 established. They desire, however, to elicit the views of Sectional 

 Committees on this point, and suggest that these should be reported by 

 the sectional representatives to the Committee of Recommendations at 

 the York Meeting. 



The Council are impressed with the fact that at each annual meeting 

 certain grants are applied for and made on the chance that they may be 

 wanted during the ensuing year. The Council feel that money adjudged 

 at the Annual Meeting to be available from general funds for grants should 

 be made only for purposes for which it is known that money will be 

 needed during the ensuing year. The Council, therefore, propose a new 

 class of contingent recommendations to be addressed to themselves as 

 administering the Caird Fund. This practice should be followed in the 



