MINUTES OF EVIDEXCE. 



103 



are not onlr peculiarly galling to anyone haying the feel- 

 ings of a gentleman, "but which are seriously -svorking to 

 the detriment of the establishment, and if continued will 

 degrade it from its lofty position, disgrace it in the eyes 

 ■of°the scientific world, and entirely defeat the objects 

 of those who have sine* its foundation so liberally con- 

 tributed to it. Your Lordship is already in possession 

 of the fact.'s of the case in the Memorial to the Firet Lord 

 of the Treasury, to which my signature is amongst others 

 attached, but,' as owing to my having always kept aloof 

 from the world of politics my'name must be unknown to 

 you, I have ventured thus to lay before you the grounds 

 upon which I conceive myself to have been, placed in a 

 position peculiarlv adapted to the appreciation of the 

 merits of the case", and to justify me in prot^estuig to the 

 best of mv power against proceedings tending to the ruin 

 of an establishment I have taken so much interest in. 



1255. (Chairman.) Perhaps one ought to have stated, 

 in transmitting those questions to yen, tbat we gave you 

 ■full liberty to put the answers in any form that seemed 

 to vou most desirable ? — There has been a little difHculty 

 onthe part of my Board in quite grasping the object- of 

 the inquiry, and some of the questions seemed to nio to 

 "be ambiguous, and, of course, without some explinitory 

 memorandum on the part of the Committee, it was rathar 

 difficult to conjecture exactly what kind of information 

 was desired. I have done the best, and there it is. Of 

 -course. I have submitted a copy to the Of&ce of Worivs 

 to let them see what I have said, and this document is 

 therefore now fully official. 



1257. I gather from that memorandum that the Royal 

 -Gardens at Kew serve various purposes. On the one 

 liand, we may regard them as a great instrument for 

 botanicai research, research in scientific botany ; on the 

 ■other hand, they are a great instrument for economic 

 botany for the Empire, and especially for the Colonies, 

 India," and our other possessions ; and then they are an 

 instrument of liigh scientific, horticultural education : 

 while at the same time they are an instrument of popular 

 instruction as well as recreation? — ^Yes. I think that is 

 a kind of summaiy. I may say that, strictly speaking, 

 our proper title is" " Hoyal Botanic Gardens." I think 

 that is perhaps rather important, because the dropping 

 out of tbe word ''Botanic" has led Ministers and ocliers 

 probably to think we are more of the nature of a park 

 than is actually the case. In all those matters you have 

 mentioned, we have simply carried out what seemed to 

 be the intention of Parliament in the document which 

 I believe is before the Committee, and whicli was the 

 result of a report of a Departmental Committee ap- 

 pointed in 1838. That I think has generally been taken 

 as the programme of the operations of the establish- 

 Taent. 



1268. ''■ The Royal Botanic Gardens " is vour proper 

 title ?— Yes. 



1269. I gather also from the memorandum that the 

 iherbarium is at it were the scene of all your varied 

 activity ? — ^Certainly. 



1270. Both for botanic research, economic boiany, horti- 

 culture, and the general maintenance of the Gardens ? — 

 Yes. 



1271. And that if that herbarium were removed or 

 «ven if it were replaced by anything inferior, to use 

 your own words in your introductory letter, you would 

 be " paralysed " ? — i^^'ot merely paralysed, but any step 

 of that kind would, in my opinion, simply mean the 

 disestablishment of the institution. Of course, as iHer 

 Majesty's Government has created Kew for the pur- 

 poses which they defined, they may also, if they t^ink 

 proper, abolish it. That is a political matter. 



il272. The question was rather directed to ascertain 

 whether the herbarium, as part of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, was, so to speak ? — ^This is rather a diffi- 

 culty I have met ; you cannot dissociate the herbarium, 

 for instance, from the library, museums, and the labo- 

 ratory ; in fact, Kew is a sort of organic whole, and 

 you cannot take away one part without impairing the 

 efficiency of all the rest. 



1273. That is your opinion, and that is just what we 



wanted you to lay definitely before us ?— It is exactly 



analogous to the case of the Observatory at Greenwich. 



You mieht have the Astronomer Royal here, and ask him 



if he could do his work without telescopes. 



il.274. -We have reason to believe that your her- 

 barium dijffers in some respects in composition from that 

 at the British Museum. The British Museum possess 



cerium collections which are not at present in your ^y,-,. yy j 

 collection, so that from that point of view your collec- ThiseUori- 

 tion is not complete for the purpose of research ? — That T'ycr, 

 expression does not convey very much meaning to my k.c.m.g., 

 mind. No herbarium can be complete under terrestrial f.r.s. 



conditions. Our herbarium, of course, ditl'ers from that 



of the British Museum, just as it differs from that of 29 Nov. 1900. 

 Paris or Berlin, or Petersburg. Every herbarium, as • 

 every picture gallery, contains something that others 

 have not. The idea of a complete herbarium is purely 

 a transcendental one. The ditference in that respect 

 between the Kew heibarium and the herbarium of the 

 Botanical Department of the British Museum is that the 

 collections relating to the British possessions in 

 difi'erent parts of the world which were formed in the 

 last century and the beginning of this are at Svutli 

 Kensington and not at Kew. In that sense, as repre- 

 senting the result of botanical research throughout the 

 Empire, certainly the Kew herbarium is not complete, 

 because it lacks" the Banksian herbarium, and all the 

 plants collected in the Southern Hemisphere during 

 Cook's voyages and other great expeditions. 



1275. So that it results frecjuently, I suppose, that 

 botanists who have carried on their investigation at 

 Kew, in order, as I might say, to complete their in- 

 vestigations as far as possible, subsequently consult the 

 British Museum, or those that have consulted the 

 British Museum come to you ? — I presume so. I have 

 not really very much knowledge on the subject. A per- 

 son who is writing a monograph will consult all the 

 material that he can get hold of. Some men visit every 

 herbarium in Europe. It entirely depends on what part 

 of the world tlie man is studying. If a man is engaged 

 in botanical research with regard to our Indian posses- 

 sions, I should be very much surprised to hear that he 

 had found anything important at South Kensington 

 that we had not got. If he wanted to study the col- 

 lections of the Pacific, or of Australia, made in 

 the last century, and which were published by Robert 

 Brown, of course he would have t;o go to the British 

 -Uuseiim. I do not think you can generalise as to 

 the use to which the two establishments are put in 

 that respect. 



1276. Are you of opinion that the incompleteness to 

 which you have just referred, incompleteness resulting 

 from certain collections being at the British Museum, 

 affects the usefulness of your own herbarium in your 

 own work? — I cannot accept the term " incompleteness." 



1277. May I put it in this way. You have stated that 

 there are collections referring to British possessions 

 which are at the British Museum, and are not at Kew 1 

 — I must explain a little more. I do not believe the 

 British Museum has anything that is not at least 

 represented at Kew. The value of the collections 

 at the British Museum which are of interest to us, 

 is based on their historical character. You must 

 have had plenty of technical evidence on this point 

 from other witnesses. When a botanist is engaged, 

 say, in a scientific research, he wishes to see the 

 actual specimens which were used and worked upon by 

 the persons who first described a particular plant. 

 We may have a cabinet full of that plant at Kew, but 

 that does not exonerate an exact monographer from ex- 

 amining what is called the type material. Therefore, 

 the use of the word "complete" or "incomplete" with- 

 out very careful definition, would convey to the Commit- 

 tee an entirely erroneous opinion. I have no hesitation 

 in saying that the Kew herbarium is the most complete 

 in the world — the most complete in existence. It would 

 not be materially supplemented from the South Ken- 

 sington collection, except from a historical point of 

 view. 



1278. That is just the information I wish to elicit from 

 you. because I suppose that that point of view, and that 

 which results from any investigation from the historic 

 point of view, does not affect your own administration of 

 the gardens ? — Personally, I am aware of the existence 

 of a herbarium at South Kensington, bat I cannot sar I 

 ever jrive it a thought as regards the conduct of my own 

 establishment. 



1279. So far as the internal activity of your own estab- 

 lishment is concerned that would not be greatly assisted 

 by the transference of the herbarium at present at the 

 British Museum, to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ? 

 — Certainly not. 



1280. Are you of opinion that the science of botany 

 in general — ^because now we may leave out the work 

 carried on at Kew — gains any advantages, or does it 

 suffer disadvantages, from the existence and mainten- 

 ance of the collections at the British Museum in their 



