Iviii 
Monthly  Council,  October  G,  1904. 
the  Exhibitors  of  Implements  and  Live 
Stock  respectively.  He  thought  there 
would  be  a general  agreement  as  to 
the  need  for  the  existence  of  a National 
Agricultural  Society  such  as  the  Royal 
Agricultural  Society,  which  need  was 
indeed  recognised  in  all  countries.  It 
did  not  seem  necessary,  therefore,  to 
argue  the  question  of  the  usefulness 
of  such  a Society  in  the  public  interests 
of  Agriculture  generally.  Such  a 
Society  must  have  central  offices,  and 
reasonable  accommodation  for  the 
transaction  of  its  daily  business  and 
the  convenience  of  its  governing  body 
and  its  Members  ; and  it  must  have 
a comparatively  skilled  staff  to  deal 
with  the  various  demands  upon  the 
Society’s  accumulated  information  and 
resources  made  by  the  9,500  members, 
by  kindred  bodies,  and  by  the  public 
generally. 
The  only  comparatively  assured 
source  of  income  to  their  Society  had 
been  the  annual  subscriptions  of  the 
Members,  supplemented  (so  long  as  the 
Reserve  Fund  lasted)  by  contributions, 
representing  the  share  of  the  3,500 
Life  Members,  to  the  annual  revenue. 
But  now,  owing  to  the  Reserve  Fund 
having  been  all  spent  in  meeting  the 
losses  of  recent  years,  and  the  Society’s 
only  remaining  assets  having  been 
pledged  to  meet  the  expenditure  and 
losses  of  the  current  year,  1904,  the 
Society  had  (independently  of  other 
difficulties)  to  consider  the  problem  of 
going  forward  for  another  year  with 
only  an  income  of  6,000/.  from  sub- 
scriptions to  do  all  its  work,  and  to 
meet  the  expenses  of  the  privileges 
which  it  had  heretofore  accorded  to  a 
body  of  Members  (Annual  and  Life) 
numbering  9,500. 
Whatever  the  result  of  the  appeal 
which  they  proposed  to  make  to 
Members  and  to  well-wishers  of  Agri- 
culture generally,  for  funds  to  enable 
the  Society  to  continue  its  public 
work,  it  would  be  necessary  for  the 
Society  to  make  economies  in  its  head 
office  expenses,  even  at  the  cost  of 
some  temporary  diminution  of  the 
high  standard  of  efficiency  on  which 
the  Society  had  hitherto  prided  itself. 
It  would  hardly  be  possible,  moreover, 
to  give  the  Members  so  good  an  annual 
Journal  as  before  ; and  it  might  be 
difficult  to  continue  in  their  present 
form  the  scientific  privileges  which 
Members  had  been  accustomed  to 
enjoy,  and  the  various  Chemical, 
Veterinary,  Botanical,  Zoological, 
Educational  and  other  scientific  in- 
vestigations which  had  been  conducted 
by  the  Society  for  the  benefit  of 
agi'iculture  generally. 
The  several  services  in  all  depart- 
ments of  the  Society’s  work,  other 
than  the  expenses  of  actually  preparing 
for  and  holding  the  Annual  Show,  had 
latterly  cost  the  Society  9,OOOZ.  a year. 
It  had  been  heretofore  possible  to  meet 
this  out  of  the  annual  subscriptions 
and  contributions  from  the  accumu- 
lated Reserve  Fund  ; but  as  the  latter 
source  of  revenue  no  longer  existed, 
it  would  be  necessary  for  the  Council 
to  consider  to  what  departments  of 
the  Society’s  work,  and  in  what  pro- 
portions, it  could  allocate  the  annual 
subscriptions  which  it  might  expect 
in  the  future  to  receive,  and  which  it 
might  be  hoped  would  exceed  the 
6,000/.  at  present  subscribed. 
And  here  the  great  difficulty  arose 
that  no  provision  could  possibly  be 
made,  except  at  the  sacrifice  of  prac- 
tically all  the  Society’s  other  work,  for 
a grant  to  the  Show  from  the  sub- 
scriptions. The  underlying  idea  had 
been  in  the  past  that  the  ordinary 
staff  of  the  Society  (with  the  attendant 
expenses  for  house  accommodation 
and  office  charges)  were  available  to 
undertake  such  part  of  the  Show 
preliminaries  as  could  be  done  at 
headquarters  ; the  return  for  the 
services  so  given  by  the  Society  being 
the  receipt  by  every  Member  of  a free 
ticket  of  admission,  and  by  such 
Members  as  exhibited  live  stock,  &c., 
of  much  reduced  fees  for  entries.  It 
was  obvious  that  so  efficient  a staff 
could  not,  without  increased  expense, 
be  retained  for  the  exclusive  purpose 
of  Show  preparation,  if  the  organi- 
sation of  the  Show  were  entirely 
separated  from  that  of  the  Society’s 
other  work. 
If  it  were  assumed  that  the  old 
plan  were  continued  of  organising  an 
Annual  Show  as  part  of  the  Society’s 
public  duties,  the  grave  question 
arose.  How  was  the  possible  and,  it 
was  to  be  feared,  inevitable  loss  on  the 
holding  of  the  Show  itself  to  be  dealt 
with  ? 
