[36]
The reply of the Executive Committee began by welcoming criticism from
within the Society, of which they complained that in the past they had
had too little. An opposition, they said, was a requisite of good
government. They were prepared to welcome expansion, but they pointed
out that the handsome offices proposed must be produced by the large
income and not the income by the handsome offices. A publishing business
on the scale suggested could not be undertaken by an unincorporated
society; moreover, at present the Society had not sufficient income to
pay its officials at the market rate, or to keep out of debt to its
printer. They agreed that the Executive Committee should be enlarged,
but recommended twenty-one instead of twenty-five members; and that the
three proposed sub-committees be appointed, but of seven members each
instead of three. The project of triumvirates they could not endorse,
both for other reasons and because all the leading members of the
Society refused to serve on them, while the essence of the scheme was
that the triumvirs should be the most influential members of the
Society. The abolition of the old-fashioned restrictions on admission to
membership was approved, but not the proposal for a fixed subscription
payable on an appointed date. The Executive Committee did not object to
the proposed new Basis as a whole (and in fact it is on record that its
adoption by the Executive was only lost by 7 votes to 6); but considered
that passages were open to criticism and that the time and effort
necessary for carrying through any new Basis, so worded as to unite
practically the whole Society, would be better spent in other ways.
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