Wednesday , December 12, 1906. 
xlvii 
Walker, James Watt, A. G-. Weigall, 
J. Welford, J. Bell White, T. P. Wiikes, 
A. de C. Wilson, W. F. Wilson, Pro- 
fessor J. Wrightson, &c. 
The President, in opening the 
proceedings, expressed the regret of 
the Council that they were not able 
to welcome the Members of the Society 
in the new house they had acquired at 
16 Bedford Square. The room there 
was finished, but owing to the fact 
that it was a new building it was not 
sufficiently dry to be used for the 
purpose. He hoped, however, that on 
the next occasion the Council might 
be able to welcome the Members 
within the walls of their own building. 
He desired to point out that, at 
16 Bedford Square, a room was pro- 
vided for the use of Members in which 
they might write letters or read the 
papers, as was the case formerly at 
Harewood House. The Keport, which 
was in the hands of those present, 
gave in full detail the work of the 
past year. A large part of that work 
had been based upon the Special 
Committee’s recommendations, which 
had been adopted by the Council, 
and practically all of them had been 
carried out, with the exception of 
the Conference of Secretaries of Agri- 
cultural and Breed Societies (which it 
was hoped to hold in the spring of 
next year), and the actual sale of 
Harewood House. The Council had 
had every reason to suppose that by 
the end of September last that house 
would have been disposed of, but 
unfortunately at the last moment 
the negotiations were broken off. He 
could only assure them that the 
Council were using every endeavour 
to dispose of that house at as early a 
date as possible, and, with a valuable 
property of the kind, he had every 
reason to suppose that it would not be 
long before it was realised. 
He pointed out that, in spite of the 
fact that the Society was at present 
the owner of two houses, they were 
living rather more cheaply than when 
they were the owners of one house 
only. That was the one note of 
disappointment that he had to sound. 
In other respects they might congratu- 
late themselves that the financial 
position of the Society was more hope- 
ful than it had been when he had 
taken office seventeen months ago. 
They had to express their thanks to 
Sir Gilbert Greenall, the Honorary 
Director, that they had held a most 
successful Show at Derby, which had 
increased the finances of the Society. 
An equally encouraging feature was 
the increase of membership during 
the past year. He wished, however, 
to repeat what he had said once 
before, that the future strength of the 
Society depended upon an increase of 
membership. At the present time they 
had approximately 10,000 Members, 
but he did not think that that was a 
sufficiently large number for the great 
Society which represented the agri- 
culture of England, with a little 
Scotch representation thrown in. 
He did not wish to detain them with 
any remarks of his own because the 
work was fully set out in the Beport, but 
there were just one or two acknowledg- 
ments that he felt he must make on 
their behalf. The first was that the 
Society owed a deep debt of gratitude 
to the Mayor of Derby and to the Lord- 
Lieutenant of Derbyshire for their 
generous co-operation and help at a 
time when that co-operation and help 
were most needed by the Society. The 
Society also owed a deep debt of grati- 
tude to the many gentlemen and the 
influential City Companies who had 
given them such valuable financial help 
at a time when it had been extremely 
valuable to them. It was not necessary 
for him to mention them by names, for 
they were set out in the Report which 
had been circulated. Further, they 
must also acknowledge the help which 
had been given to them by the various 
Breed Societies scattered all over the 
country, and representing almost every 
part of England, by the handsome way 
they had contributed to the prize fund 
during the past year or two. 
Bye-law Ho. 60 required that the 
balance-sheet and the report of the 
auditors should be submitted to the 
Annual General Meeting for their con- 
sideration. As, however, the Society’s 
financial year did not end until Decem- 
ber 31, it was impossible to present 
to that meeting the current year’s 
accounts. Under the circumstances, 
the balance-sheet for 1905, as published 
in the last number of the Journal, 
issued at the beginning of this year, 
