368 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
(Lord Avebury), and Professor Flower. The committee 
suffered the fate of most committees. It had grown too 
large; its members, though not without interest in the 
renewal of Antarctic research, were all individually more 
interested in other things, and its reports do not indicate 
any great or effective activity. The Government of Vic- 
toria took the first definite action by memorialising the 
Colonial Secretary and offering to provide £5,000 for a 
preliminary expedition combining trade and science, 
if the Imperial Government would provide a like amount. 
From the wording of the proposal it would appear as if 
the other Australasian colonies also intended to partici- 
pate, but whether by subscribing towards the £5,000 or 
by making supplementary grants did not appear so 
plainly. The Colonial Office forwarded the proposal to 
the Treasury with a recommendation that the money 
should be granted. The Royal Society and the Royal 
Geographical Society wrote supporting it. It was gen- 
erally believed that Sir Allen Young, a hero of the Frank- 
lin search, would take command of the expedition and 
subscribe largely to its funds. The importance of any 
national expedition being on a large scale, under naval 
discipline and with a purely scientific aim, so strongly 
insisted upon by Sir John Murray, seems to have been 
lost sight of, or at least it was not brought forward. 
The Treasury, perhaps looking beyond the letter of the 
memorials addressed to it, and divining it may be a lack 
of conviction in the petitioners, refused to have anything 
to do with the proposals. The British Association com- 
mittee lingered on for a couple of years, but having 
achieved nothing, no doubt because it had not aimed high 
enough, it was at length disbanded, ostensibly because 
energetic steps were being taken in Australia. The Mel- 
