. CONFEEENCE OF CHEMISTS AND DEUGGISTS. 503 
Mr. Betty : You have had uo power hitherto, but shall you apply for it under the 
new Act ? 
The Peesident : Certainly not; and if the Government would grant such power, I 
should assuredly vote against our taking it. I think it would be only a source of discord 
in the Society. Parliament would not interfere to give us any Act to protect our trade, 
but I apprehend it would give us an Act to protect the public against incompetent 
persons, which would virtually protect our trade. To retain the confidence of the public, 
it is absolutely necessary that the Society should be kept up to a proper standard; and 
in framing the suggestions it was proposed to limit the Council to Pharmaceutical 
Chemists, in order to leave a greater inducement for all men to come up for the higher 
examination. That was the chief reason for the restriction. There may be other 
secondary reasons,—the accumulation of a large amount of property, and the expendi- 
tm'e of more than £100,000, collected entirely from members of the Society during a 
quarter of a century of subscription, and very hard work on the part of the Council. 
The perfect equality of the non-examined Pharmaceutical Chemists and outsiders of the 
same date, may be true enough in the main, but some credit should be given to those 
who, seeing the necessity for a change, have exerted themselves so successfully to pro¬ 
mote it. Still, remembering that the Pharmaceutical Society was established to em¬ 
brace all chemists and druggists in Great Britain, the Council, animated by the desire 
that it should do so, propose that, in the event of obtaining an Act of Parliament to 
compel the examination of all men entering the trade in future, those chemists in busi¬ 
ness at the time of the passing of that Act, who may choose to become members of the 
Society, shall be eligible for the Council, but that three-fourths or two-thirds of the 
Council shall always consist of Pharmaceutical Chemists. This would certainly give all 
men the opportunity for a fair representation, and the votes of the Society would regu¬ 
late it. 
Mr. Toogood said he thought the President had adduced a very good argument 
against members newly joining becoming members of the Council. He had come to 
represent a large number, and he felt that he could not enter that room without arguing 
everything fairly. The Pharmaceutical Society had been accumulating their property 
for a great number of years ; the United Society had not contributed a farthing; and 
he thought it would be extremely unfair for a man belonging to the latter seeking to 
be admitted to all the privileges of the former without first paying down a sum equal, 
he would say, to what had been paid by the several members of the Council during the 
time they had belonged to it. If he had the ambition to become a member of the 
Council, he should be very glad to pay, say £50; but they might say £20, or any other 
sum they could agree upon. 
The President : That is bringing the thing to a point. You might say every man 
on election should pay a couple of guineas, and then he would be eligible to election on 
the Council. That would be a compromise to some extent. Then, having made all 
men eligible, he believed a measure might be framed on a basis of that kind. 
In reply to Mr. Huddlestone, of Sheffield, 
Mr. Waugh said the Examiners were not necessarily on the Council. 
Mr. Huddlestone said that many of the Sheffield chemists were in favour of a pay¬ 
ment for eligibility to be elected on the Council. 
The President : We never proposed to take large fees, nor to limit the number of 
our members. 
After some further discussion, 
.Mr. Anderson expressed his entire satisfaction with the explanations afford':'d by the 
Council, and proposed to take a show of hands from the deputation as to whether they 
were not likewise satisfied. 
The Council retired from the room, and Mr. Matthews put the question to the depu¬ 
tation, whether the trade generally, as represented by them, would not be satisfied ; and 
the response was in the affirmative, nem. con. 
The Council re-entered the room ; this information was conveyed to them. 
The President made some observations on the old adage that union was strength, 
and then closed the interview. 
A second deputation, consisting of the chemists and druggists unrepresented by any 
organized society, was introduced by Mr. Wade, who said; Mr. President and Gentle- 
