342 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



accepted, and tlie best thanks of your Council have been presented to 

 Mr. Jodrell. 



In April last I was informed by the Lord President of the Council 

 that Her Majesty's Groyernment had under consideration the question of 

 giving further aid to scientific research, by increasing the Parliamentary 

 grant of .£1000 per annum which is administered b}^ the Council under 

 the recommendation of the Government Grant Committee in aiding 

 investigators with apparatus and assistance. They proposed in future, 

 to augment the Grant annually for five years by £4000, to vest the 

 administration of the whole in the Science and Art Department, and to 

 invite the Society's Council to aid Her Majesty's GoA'ernment, as hitherto, 

 with advice and assistance as to its appropriation and expenditure, and 

 further to give us the power of recommending, in certain cases, the 

 payment of personal allowances to investigators. The communication 

 also advised that the Presidents of fifteen learned bodies in the United 

 Kingdom should be ex officio members of the Government Grant Com- 

 mittee, — a change in its constitution more apparent than real, as the 

 majority of the Presidents specified were already Pellows of the Society. 

 After several conferences with the Minister, the original proposal was, 

 with his concurrence, modified, and made to apply to the additional 

 £4000 only, the administration of the original £1000 remaining as 

 heretofore, to be accounted for to the Treasury, and the recommen- 

 dations of the Council with respect to the appropriation of the ad- 

 ditional sum to be liable to revision by the Lord President, in whose 

 department the vote is taken, and who must be responsible to Par- 

 liament for its expenditure. With this proposal your Council con- 

 curred, on the understanding that should it liappen that the Lord Presi- 

 dent found it inadvisable to act upon all your Council's recommendations 

 (which, in his Lordship's opinion, is never likely to happen), the Council 

 should have the opportunity of revising them, so that, if thought 

 desirable, the items of the grant to which exception had been taken 

 might be allocated in some other way. 



There are therefore now two Government grants in aid of scientific 

 research, one of £1000 per annum, for the administration of which your 

 Council is directly accountable to the Treasury, and which, as heretofore, 

 will be appropriated to the providing of instruments and assistance for 

 scientific inquirers : the other, of £4000 annually for five years, to be 

 applied to the aid of investigators, not only by providing instruments 

 and assistance, but occasionally by personal allowances or grants of 

 money, in accordance with recommendations to be made to the Lord 

 President. 



The constitution of this new Committee is 'not yet settled ; but it 

 will probably consist of the existing one, together with all the ex officio 

 members as proposed. 



