Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/12

viii determined to enforce the rule first proposed in the Council’s Report at the Anniversary Meeting of the year 1849, and now entered in the Statutes under Chapter IX., Paragraph 3; and by means of arrangements to be made for carefully examining in future the monthly progress of the payments, it is hoped that the great difference hitherto observable between the number of Fellows on the rolls of the Society, and the number of paying Members, will gradually diminish.

Past and Present State of the Finances.—The financial position of the Society has greatly improved during the last fifteen years, as the following tabulated statements will indicate.

At the first Meeting of the Society, on the 16th July, 1830, it was resolved, “That such part of the Funds of the Society as may not be required for current expenses be placed in the Public Securities and vested in the names of three Trustees.” And in the Report laid before the Meeting of 1832 it was stated that the Council had resolved, “That the Compositions be set apart as a Capital Stock, to be lodged in Government or other unexceptionable Securities, and kept at least equal to the amount of the compositions of all compounding members alive at any given time; whilst the annual subscriptions, with the interest on this Stock, and other items of accruing income, will be disposable to meet the current expenses of the year.”

The Funded Capital of the Society, consisting at the beginning of 1863 of 7,500l., and at the close of the year 1863 of 9,500l. New 3 Per Cent. Government Stocks, was increased during the past year by the purchase of 2,000l. Stock for a cash payment of 1,837l. 10s., and since the 1st January of this current year an addition has been made by funding a sum of 896l. 5s., for which 1,000l. New 3 Per Cent. Stock has been purchased, making a total of 10,500l. Stock, yielding an annual income of 315l., as the reserve Fund of the Society up to this date.

The amount invested in the Consols is equivalent at par to the compositions of only 420 Compounding Members, calculating for each at the existing rate of 25l., which is 8l. in excess of the former sum of 17l., at which the composition of several was originally made. And as the numbers of all the living Life Members at present are 498, the Funded Property may still be considered by some Fellows to be less in amount than the