Braemar. 7. July 
o/o Messrs Grindly & Co* 
54 Parliament Street, 
London, C.W.l* 
Dear Sir Laurence Guillemard, 
May I offer first our congratulations upon your G.C.M*(f», 
and then put before you my qm concern* 
% 
2. The cause of my writing is information sent to me by the 
Acting Director of Gardens, which, were I in Singapore would 
have made me seek an interview with you, and as I at a 
distance, snakes me take the alternative of asking if yovi will 
kindly receive this letter. My information is two-fold* 
Firstly there is an official letter to me as the Director of 1 
Gardens from the Colonial Secretary ending v 1 am to say thftt\ 
Government has no intention of discontinuing the botanical wo$$c 
carried on by your Department • secondly there is a file full 
of proposals relating to the Gardens,the CfU^^c* watch turns.; 
upon their control. In it the Hon. Mr. oe fthcWtCuan advocates 
putting them under the Director of the Raffles Museum, a 
Zoologist, with the assistance of a Gardener? and I'r.Haynes 
suggests the impossibility of such control; but the Colonial 
Secretary very strongly asserts agreement with. Mr » Lee ChoireiOu^ 
To me that the head of the Secretariat should volunteer the 
assurance quoted, at the time when he was most strongly urging 
In. 
hat I should call a distinct disc aitinuance of the work of 
my Department is only understandable as a misunderstanding of my\ 
\ 
work; and as he has never once during the whole of our 
contemporary service allowed me a discussion on general matters, 
neither on my seeking it at his office, nor by visiting himself 
any part of the Gardens with me, I am distinctly uneasy at, the 
wont of common ground upon which to stand - uneasy enough to 
take unon mvseXf the writing of this letter to you to request 
that if I am not to be trusted to indicate how Botany should be 
advanced in the Malay peninsula, advice may bo sought in 
Britain, 6 ,g» from Kew or the*Royal Society. 
3. How it has been proposed that Mr. Cubitt, Kr.Haynes and 
I should form a Committee to report upon the removal of the 
centre of botanical work to Kuala Lumpur. If x join in a 
report with these two recommending it, as the position or 
things is now, I walk straight into a trap: for a removal to 
Kuala Lumpur would be seized on to reccminend again the reducti.on 
of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, in spi^e of their world-wide 
reputation - to a park; and the Government is not going to be 
able to make good even in fifty years, at that new centra. 
You ill understand that I am bound to have misgivings as to 
the usd which will be made of our recommendations. with tnia 
feeling and seeing no clearly constructive goodwill, I do not mo 
how I am can sit upon the proposed Committee with the hop- of 
do^n^ good* But if you can do me the kindness on my return >o 
the traits of revealing the lions of Government good 
may come. 
4. You do not, I hope, think me without a clear programme for 
Botanic work. I have one contructeh. for long growth, like the 
growth Of ti; trees of the Gardens; but it may never ^ve got 
through the secretariat files to you. It is this. Mr* 4 v d l ey 
returned in 1912 possessing an unique knowledge oi ^©higher 
olarits of the Malay Peninsula, got by exploring it, and Rowing 
them during 25 years. He wished to write a lima, and -.»he 
Government wished for one. In aletter to Government (Mr.M-xwell 
