Page:FM Bailey letters from LA Bethell.pdf/5

 most promising stuff: and with the help of old diaries would make a long and interesting paper.

I’m getting concerned about the way the initials “F.R.G.S.” are being commercialised. You’ve only to look through the advertisements of people running cruises, winter sports parties, hired safaris for C. African Shikhar, (and all the other ways in which people who are not competent to, spend good money on voluntary travel) to find how many of the promotions show F.R.G.S. after their names, as a bait. Ever since Curzon's megalomania of expansion with Kensington Gore, his council have had to go body(?) snatching for new members: and this commercialisation of the membership

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qualification is a direct result. Some years ago I put it up to the council that the list should be divided into “A.R.G.S.” (associates) whose fees would come in, as they do now, often from people who have never seen the white side of Dover Cliffs, and who certainly have never been a mile from a cooked dinner in all their lives – and the “F.R.G.S.” (fellows), whose qualifications would be scrutinised by the council in terms such as those which you and I know. The latter might be trusted (as doctors, indeed, are compelled) not to use the qualification for rewarding or commercial ends. The final result would be an enhancement of the “izzat” of the whole show: especially if the “A”’s were told that they could be promoted to “F” for subsequent active work done: and, as for the change being a loss to the society, one would foreseeably expect a larger number of

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candidates.

I got a very courteous letter back, saying that the Council didn’t see their way to risking the loss of fees in making the change. They were quite frank about the fact that fees, alone, were the obstacle. So I dropped it.

But if you – as you probably will be – are re-elected to the Council when you return, do you think you could keep this suggestion up your sleeve for a second chance of presenting it? What I’m so afraid of is that if the present state of affairs goes on, some almighty slump may suddenly take place, and fellows withdraw their names wholesale. Whereupon, it would be a case of Humpty Dumpty, the thing would be irreparable.

Do let me have a line sometimes about your new surroundings: and please accept my assurance, that nothing you tell me, directly or indirectly, will ever be printed or published.


 * Yours sincerely.
 * L. Bethell

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Letter 4, 10th May 1930