MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



105 



under my notice — that is, the purchase of the Bosoherelle 

 collection, which was otfered to me. I went very care- 

 fully into it, and came to the conclusion that at the j>rice 

 ;vsked Id was not a purchase that ought to be made out of 

 public funds. When I was over in Paris the other day I 

 heard that the Uritish Museum had bouglit it. I do not 

 know whether 3-ou can call that competition — that is 

 their atl'iir. It certaindy seems to me rather striking that 

 you sliould have two establishments witli the siime objec*-, 

 one making a inireiiase and the other declining. It is a 

 matter more for the Treasury tdian for me. 



1297. You say that the housing of your collection is at 

 present insutficient ? — Absolutely. 



1298. And you have urgent need for extension ? — Yes. 

 Of cotii'se, I could only as an administrator bring tinder 

 Her MajeS'ty"s Government the state of matters. Tlie 

 mart)ter was pressed ver^- strongly on the Treasury- by the 

 First Commissioner ; that was in January, 1898. The 

 Treasury postponed consideration, and then they 

 raised a question which I confess is perfectly unintelligible 

 to me. You will find it on page 97 of my memorandum. 

 You see tliat tJiey say, '' For the purpose of receiving more 

 detailed consideration in the course of 1898, together with 

 the various btiilding questions which will arise in connec- 

 tion with Her Majesty's gracious surrender of hecr rights 

 at Ke>w." That may have been intended, of course, to 

 hang the whole thing up indefinitely, bttt what it meant 

 on the face of it, I have not the ghost of a notion. Xow, 

 of course, things have come to an absolute deadlock. I sug- 

 gesited that you should have tJie keeper of the herbarium 

 to tell his own sitory. Persons engaged in research at 

 Kew are positively being hampered in their work. 



1299. We learn from your memorandum that yott 

 maintain the collections at the British Mitseum are his- 

 torically an otfshoot from Kew ? — That only applies to 

 the Banksian herbarium. Of course, it does not apply 

 to the collections made since 1880. I have known the 

 Botanical Department of the British Museum, I sup- 

 pose, for about forty years. Before 1880, when it was 

 removed to Sottth Kensington, it was a small affair ; it 

 was practically the Banksian herbarium, which was a 

 herbarium kept in the same cases as in Sir Joseph 

 Banks's house, but a historical collection of the greatest 

 importance and interest. Then a great gallery was 

 built at South Kensington, which, I suppose, roughly, 

 we may put as having cost something like £150.000, 

 and the staff of the Botanical Department, which, when 

 I first knew it. only consisted of two persons, was very 

 much increased, and there was an enormous expansion. 

 The great bttlk of the British Museum herbarium, as 

 I understand, has been acctimulated since 1880. What 

 it consists of I really do not know. 



1300. AVe had a letter laid before us from the India 

 Office, stating that they had authorised you to make any 

 statement on their behalf to any question in which the 

 interests of India would be concerned in the present in- 

 quiry, and I undeiistand that the Colonial Office regard 

 the matter in the same way ? — My official position, of 

 course, places • me in a different category to other 

 witnesses. The official members of the Committee will 

 be perfectly aware of what that jjosition is. I am not 

 authorised to give any evidence before this Committee 

 without, of course, the explicit sanction of the Board 

 to which I belong. I applied in the ordinary course 

 for instruction, and to begin with I was told that this 

 was an educational inquiry. Then that has been modi- 

 fied to a certain extent, and I am instructed that I may 

 give evidence with regard to the work at South Kensington. 

 That again is ambiguous, because I have ascertained that 

 botanical work at South Kensington is going on at least 

 in K)ur institutions which I know very little about. But 

 I am afraid that with regard to the India Office and the 

 Colonial Office, I do not feel authorised to speak on behalf 

 of two Secretaries of State who have given me no instruc- 

 tions. I have received a private communicatdon from 

 the India Office, saying that Lord George Hamilton 

 wishes me to represent the India Office, but I am not an 

 official of the India Office, and I only do work for them 

 wliicih they s&nd me. I think it is their business to ex- 

 plain to the Committee the nature, and, if they think 

 proper, the value of that work. It is the same wi^tih the 

 Colonial Office. I really do not think I can speak for 

 branches of the Government with which I am not con- 

 nected. 



1301. I think the view of the India Office was that they 

 were quite content you should state your opinion as to 

 any interest that the Indian Empire might have in the 

 ^resent inquiry in any way that it might affect Indian 

 interests? — It is for the Secretary of State for India in 



3499 



Council to state whether he thinks the work for the last 

 sixty years that has been done for India by Kew is 

 work which ought to continue or not. 



Sir W. T. 



'ThiscUon- 



Dyer, 



K.C.M.G.. 

 1'. K..S. 



1302. The question before tho Committee is a compari- 

 son between the collections and the work done at Kew and 

 the British Museum. We are not concerned with the 29 Nov. 1900, 



abs(dute value of the work at Kew, but only with a cer- 



tain point in which the two collections overlaii or coincide ? 



— I must frankly tell the Committee that I altogether 

 object to the position in Wiiich I am placed before this 

 enquiry. In the year 1885 the Treasury requested me, 

 without the smallest suggestion on my part, to take charge 

 of the administration of Kew. I Iiave administered Kew 

 for the last fitteen years precisely on the lines on which 

 I found it and on which it had gro^^^^ up. I am not sup- 

 ported on this Committee by any member of my own 

 Board, although the British Museum is represented by 

 two of the Trustees. I cannot get any intelligible in- 

 structions from my own Board. I am asked to speak on 

 behalf of the Colonial Office and India Office, with which 

 I am not officially connected, and I am asked to take the 

 whole burden of supporting the Avork of Kew on my own 

 slioidders. I am only the sen-ant of the Government to 

 carry on work M-hich either they approve of or they do not, 

 and if they wUl not defend the institution they have com- 

 mitted to my charge it is really not my affair to do their 

 work for them. Ordinarily when a Committee of this 

 kind is appointed it is due to the fact that there has been 

 some public complaint as to the efficiency of the estab- 

 lishment that is being investigated. If the Commiftee 

 have any suggestions of that kind to make I shall be very 

 happy to answer them, and very happy to supplement the 

 memorandum I have put in by any oral information which 

 will make anything obscure plain. But I am not really 

 going to assume the functions of the central Government.' 



1303. Then I gather you are not in a position to make 

 any statement as to how the botanical interests of India 

 would be affected by any of the changes which have been 

 under consideration? — Of course I have my own private 

 view, but I do not come here to give you that. The First 

 Commissioner suggested I should come before the Com- 

 mittee as a scientific expert, and of course I cannot 

 appear except in an official capacity. I think 

 you ought to get independent evidence. You 

 can have Sir Charles Bernard, or even Lord George 

 Hamilton himself. He is constantly asking my advice, 

 and if the advice is worth anything why d'oes he "not come 

 and say so ? 



1304. {Mr. Godman.) I did not quite understand 

 whether you said you thought the addition of the 

 Banksian collection and such ccllections as that would 

 not be particularly desirable at Kew, or whether you 

 thought they would be? — I am perfectly clear that it is 

 an advantage to have the materiai on which you are work- 

 ing in one place instead of two. That is a matter of 

 convenience. 



1305. And the collection of cryptogams, which I 

 believe is more extensive than at Kew, would also be a 

 crreat advantage ? — -I should be very sceptical as to that. 

 I apprehend that the collections at South Kensington 

 may be more extensive than those at Kew in bulk. That 



I think is an evil. I daresay the cryptogamic collection . 

 is bigger than ours, but that is a very serious difficulty 

 to my mind. For instance, the Bescherelle collection con- 

 tained 15,000 specimens, of which I sbould imagine per- 

 haps not more than 100 would be of any use to me. 

 Having refused to have tJiat particular collection at Kew 

 I should not view with any satisfaction its being sent 

 down from the British Museum, beeattse I do not want 

 it. I do not think that the cryptogamic collections at the 

 British Museum, as far as I know anythmg about then-', 

 are in any way comparable to ours in value, although 

 they may be larger in bulk. We have the Berkeley 

 herbarium, one of the most valuable in the world ; 

 we have certainly the most valuable fern herbarium ; and 

 in everv' particular I should say our collections axe far 

 superior to those at South Kensington. I should very 

 much doubt whether we shotild get much by amalgama- 

 tion. 



1306. But the Banksian collection and such collections 

 would be a great advantage ? — They are, of course, a part 

 of the national archives ; they are the actuai plants col- 

 lected when the Southern HemiEphere was first explored. 

 They were worked upon by persons like Ecbert Brown, 

 and they are attthentic types which of course remaip 

 of importance for ever. Wherever they are they will 

 always be regarded with interest and respect. 



1307. Do you look tipon it as a distinct advantage to 

 hava thp.m altogether at Kew in-^tead of in two collections 



O 



