426 
PHAllMACEUTICAL LEGISLATION. 
Of course he must te a member before he acts as a member. If the mode of 
election be objectionable, what other could be substituted? Should a man de¬ 
clare himself a member icWiout election ? Or should he call on five or six 
thousand persons to vote for his admission ? The Council must always be 
chosen by the Society annually, and surely the Council of the Pharmaceutical 
Society can, like the Councils of all other societies, perform such functions for 
their constituents. It must be remembered, too, that when a man has a legal 
right, under Act of Parliament, to ask for membership, that memhership must 
1)6 granted, unless good cause of disqualification can be shown against him ; the 
mere caprice of the Council would not be sufficient to exclude him, for they 
would not only have the privilege, but also the diity of electing thrown on them, 
and must act according to the “ intent and meaning” of the law. We feel here 
to be almost offering a gratuitous insult to a Council wTich has never, as far as 
we know, rejected a proper candidate for membership. 
The next passage is intended to go to the heart of every free-born man, and 
so speaks “ of the great principles of ecpiality of all unexamined chemists, and the 
right to nominate and he nominated upon the Council, lohich is the constitutional 
right of every Englishman taxed for the support of an institution a little further 
on, “ that so long as these rights are withheld, it is an outrage to propose compid- 
sory registration to the existing unincorporated chemists of the country.'^ 
This anticipation of insult is entirely‘gratuitous, inasmuch as no compulsory 
registration of existing unincorporated chemists has been proposed ; whatever 
propositions there are concerning those gentlemen are for entirely voluntary 
action on their part; and certainly all likely to improve their position. There 
is no taxation for them unless they seek it; and if they do, their constitutional 
right will come with it. Let all have their “constitutional rights,” and let it 
not be forgotten that the title of “Pharmaceutical Chemist,” and the privileges 
belonging thereto, are as much the right and vested interest of the unexamined 
men who now possess them, and but for whom the Pharmaceutical Society would 
never have existed, as the title of Chemist and Druggist is of the outsiders. 
As to the constitution of the Council, there are ample precedents for the limi¬ 
tation proposed. The Councils of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons are 
composed of “Fellows” only. In framing an Act of Parliament intended for 
all time, present personal considerations must not be allowed to stand in the 
way of future benefit; and it can scarcely be denied that the ultimate hope of all 
chemists taking the higher qualification in time to come is reasonable, and that 
inducements for their doing so should be provided. But even here the objec¬ 
tors would do well to consider that chemists already in business, having been 
so for a period of five years, need not submit to what they might call the in¬ 
dignity of presenting themselves to the Board of Examiners in the company of 
their assistants, there being a “separate examination” expressly provided for 
them, on passing which they would be at once registered as Pharmaceutical 
Chemists. 
In taking note of these objections, which appeared in the proceedings of the 
Executive Committee of the United Society recorded in the ‘ Chemist and 
Druggist ’ of January 15th, we are not oblivious of the fair and candid spirit in 
which the question is discussed in other parts of the same journal, or of the as¬ 
surances of approval received from such societies as the “ Bath Chemists’ Asso¬ 
ciation,” and published in our number of to-day; but it is our business to cor¬ 
rect the misrepresentation and misinterpretation which have been put on the 
propositions we published last month, and which have since been officially issued 
by the Council. 
So long as the unincorporated chemists think for themselyes, and speak for 
themselves, the way seems clear and easy ; but when they allow those duties to 
be usurped by others, whose interests are not identical with their own, there 
