860 Financial Report. [Aug. 



FINANCIAL REPORT. 



The subjoined Report of the Council of the Asiatic Society is print- 

 ed for circulation among the Members, in pursuance of a resolution 

 passed at the Meeting of the Society, 1st August, 1849. 



J. W. LAIDLAY, 

 V. P. and Sec. 



The Council of the Asiatic Society having anxiously considered a 

 statement of the financial position of the Society submitted by the 

 Secretaries, deem it their duty to recommend considerabe reductions 

 in the Society's present expenditure, the adoption of which the Council 

 believe cannot be postponed without exposing the Society to the risk 

 of falling into a state of serious, if not ruinous, embarrassment. 



On a careful examination of the accounts, it appears that the pre- 

 sent liabilities of the Society exceed the amount of its available assets 

 by Rs. 2,557 6 7 ; that whilst on the one hand sums, which though 

 nominally due to the Society are supposed to be irrecoverable, have 

 been carefully excluded from the list of available assets, and the list 

 of liabilities includes some sums not likely to be presently claimed, and 

 others which represent demands that in their nature are extraordinary 

 and unlikely to recur ; yet on the other hand the liabilities which now 

 exist are certain in amount, whilst the outstanding assets when actu- 

 ally realised may fall short even of the amount now assumed to be 

 capable of realization. It further appears, and this is a fact which the 

 Council desire to impress particularly upon the Society, that if the 

 monthly income and expenditure of the Society remain unaltered, its 

 embarrassment must increase, because the present, ordinary expendi- 

 ture exceeds the present income by the sum of Rs. 1/960 per men- 

 sem. This is of course a state of things which none can wish to 

 continue; but the Council beg further to remark that in their judgment 

 it is not merely by limiting the ordinary expenditure of the Society to 

 the amount of its income, or even by the discharge of its present 

 debts that the Society's finances can be placed upon a satisfactory 

 footing. Provision should be made for the purchase of books, the 

 occasional repairs or improvement of the premises, the preservation 

 and extension of our collectionsj and the other extraordinary demands 



