§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD AMULREEMy Lords, the Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded by George III in 1800, and the Bill before you contains provisions to modify certain provisions of the Act under which it was founded. The terms of the foundation were that the managers and visitors of the Institution should be elected annually from members who were neither managers nor visitors in the preceding year. There should be statutory meetings in January, on the first Monday of February, March, April, May, June, July, August, November and December, and the election of the various officers should take place at a meeting in May. The proposal at present before the House is that the managers and visitors should be elected, instead of for one year, for a term of three years, with one-third of them retiring each year, and for the members of the Institution, if they so wish, to make a by-law to the effect that the balloting shall be done by post. The Bill also provides that the meeting which normally had to be held in August shall be postponed to October, as most people do not wish to come to a meeting in London in August. The scheme which I propose has been advertised and given wide publicity in the Royal Institution, and has aroused no opposition. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;—(Lord Amulree.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.