THE INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER, 1885. SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING, 19th November, 1937 STATEMENTBY THE PRESIDENT. You have all received copies of the proposals, and the resolu- tion standing in my name is also before you, but in order to enable you to visualise the situation with which these proposals are meant to deal I want to tell you something of the proceedings from which that situation has arisen. In the Pharmacy Act, 1868, the principle was established that it was necessary for the safety of the public that medicines containing poisons should be prepared and delivered to the public by a person who was both qualified and responsible to some authority for his professional conduct. At that time most of such medicines were compounded in the retail pharmacists’ and d,ruggists’ establishments.Since then, however, a large proportion of such medicines containing poisons have been compounded in wholesale houses to be sent to the retail phar- macists ready packed. When a new Pharmacy and Poisons Act was in contemplation in 1927 it was thought necessary for the safety of the public to provide that the manufacture of such medicines containing poisons should be supervised by a qualified and answerable person wherever they were made. When the Bill was being considered by an Interdepartmental Committee it was suggested that this work should be restricted to Registered Pharmacists; but it was felt that this might be unfair to members of our profession who were in charge of general manufacturing operations under conditions where the supervision of the preparation of medicines containing poisons was only incidental to their other work.In the Act, therefore, power was taken to restrict these duties to-“ Registered Pharmacisits, or persons possessing the prescribed qualification in chemistry.” After the Act became law the Poisons Board, appointed under it, were faced with the difficulty of deciding upon a “prescribed qualification in chemistry.’’ It seemed necessary to this Board that the persons included should not only possess adequate qualification, but should also be under professional discipline. The Poisons Board pointed out, quite correctly, that the only qualifications fulfilling these requirements were the Fellowship or Associateship of the Institute.At the same time the trade was invited by the Board to make any further suggestions as to persons who might be included. It will be obvious to you that this decision immediately raised the thorny question of *‘Registration.” Your Council felt that it would not be wise to take this as an opportunity of bringing pressure upon chemists, who were not members of the Institute, to apply for admission if they were unwilling to do so. It was felt that the strength of the Institute lay very largely in the fact that it was a voluntary association, that its objects were supported by men and women who took a pride in their membership of a professional body, and that a great deal might be lost if it were felt that some of them were only members under compulsion.When consulted by the trade, therefore, the Council suggested that the position of graduates in chemistry, who were not members of the Institute, might be dealt with by a system of personal individual licensing. It appeared, however, that there was no power under the Act to introduce such a system, and when the Rule dealing with this point was actually promulgated by the Home Secretary, the necessary qualification stood, namely,-that a person en- trusted with the supervision of the manufacture of medicines containing poisons should be either a Registered Pharmacist or a member of the Institute, provision being made for persons who had been previously engaged in this kind of work for a number of years, and for medical practitioners, in connection with the manufacture of certain gland extracts, etc.After this Rule had been made, some perturbation was shown, 2 notably on behalf of the Universities, that the Rule was unfair to their graduates in Chemistry, that it might be taken as a precedent in any future legislation, and that it was “the thin end of the wedge’’ to general compulsory Registration for our profession. At a later date the Council was approached on behalf of the Universities in order to ascertain whether the Institute would be willing to do anything to meet their point of view. I think that I should say here that this approach was of a perfectly friendly nature. I was not myself at that time Vice-Chancellor of a University, nor a member of the Council of the Institute, but I can assure you that there never has been, from the start of these negotiations, any suggestion of pressure being put upon the Institute by, or on behalf of, the Universities.As a result of the negotiations which ensued between the Council and the Com- mittee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of Universities, appointed by the Universities’ Bureau of the British Empire, the proposals which are now before you were drawn up. At this stage, I want to remind you of the duties and responsi- bilities of a Chartered professional body. Charters granted to such bodies contain not only privileges but obligations.They are not granted only for the interests of the members, but they are granted mainly in the interests of public service, and the recogni- tion of such bodies by the State depends upon the services they render. I regard the proposals now before you largely a matter of public service. At the same time, I think it is hardly necessary to remind Fellows and Associates that the Council is a thoroughly repre- sentative one, of which the members are very conscious of the duties of the Institute to the State, and the proposals now submitted have not been put forward without very careful deliberation. I want you also to understand that the Council fully realises its duties to you as Fellows and Associates of the Institute. These proposals would not be put before you if the Council felt that in any way your interests would suffer.I hope that you will remember, however, that the Institute is very largely, if not primarily, an examining and qualifying authority, and it seems to the Council most desirable that there should be as close touch and association as possible between the Institute, acting in this capacity, and the Universities, which are the most important teaching organisations. 3 The principle has been established for twenty years that the Institute should admit to its membership Honours Graduates in Chemistry, who have complied with certain conditions, without , it being thought necessary that the Institute should itself formally examine them.It is a fact that a very large proportion of our present membership has been so admitted. It should be clear to you, however, that if the Institute is to be generally and permanently accepted as the proper Registration authority, so far as any such Registration may be necessary for our profession, it is essential that this should be done with the goodwill of the Universities, and you, as members of the Institute, have everything to gain by the increased recognition of your professional qualifications. I will now proceed to deal with particular parts of the pro- posals, in the light of comments made by Fellows and Associates, which have been brought to my notice. THE PROPOSEDNEW MEMBERSOF COUNCIL. In the actual document before you the references to these are-In the Petition, p.4, “that there should be more direct association of the Universities with the Institute”; and in the actual proposed Charter, p. 10,“that the Institute shall have power to modify the constitution of its Council to provide for the direct association of the Universities with the said Council, through the nomination (subject to the provisions of any By-law) of six Fellows of the Institute holding Professorial Chairs in some branch of chemistry in such Universities.” We were advised that it would be better not to put into the proposed Charter itself, the actual mechanism by which such members of the Council should be elected, because, if any such mechanism were afterwards found to be inconvenient, it would be difficult to alter it.If the Charter is actually granted this mechanism must be the subject of a new By-law, and I may remind you that the new By-laws cannot come into force until they have been submitted to and approved by you in general meeting. I think, however, that it is right that I should inform you that when the Universities agreed to support the Petition for the pro- posed Charter, and they have individually and collectively done so,it was suggested that the Council should prepare a list of twelve eligible Fellows and should then ask the Vice-Chancellors of the 4 Universities to indicate by vote their preference for six of these. The suggested By-law provided that the six so nominated should be declared elected, and should not be voted upon by the general body of members of the Institute. It was felt that the Universi- ties would thus feel that they had a more direct association with, and interest in, the work of the Council.If the Charter is granted the new By-law will of course have to be thought out very carefully, and the views expressed by any members of the Institute will be very carefully considered. I suggest there- fore that any of you who may feel doubts on this point might reserve your criticisms until the new By-laws are under con-sideration. NEW CATEGORYOF MEMBERS. Since the Council first issued the proposals to you, an im- portant alteration has been made, namely,-that it is now suggested that the new category of members may be entitled to describe themselves as “Graduates Registered by the Institute” instead of “Registered Members of the Institute.” I will take you into my confidence on this matter.The Council was never very pleased with the term as originally suggested, because it was felt that, in the minds of some imperfectly-informed persons, the term “Registered Member’’ might even be thought to be more important than Fellow or Associate of the Institute. The new term, however, should make the position quite clear. I think I should also inform you why it was thought necessary that the persons to be registered should be actually corporate members of the Institute at all. The reason is that a Chartered body cannot have any disciplinary control over a person who is not a member of it, but such a body can eject a member from its membership. We are informed that a Charter cannot give power to keep a Register, and to remove from such a Register persons who are not members of the Chartered body. Now I would remind you that the only privilege granted to this new category of members will be to have their names on a Register; but they will be required to accept exactly the same obligations towards the Institute, and to the profession as a whole, as the Fellows and Associates now do.They will not merely be pledged to comport themselves properly as regards any particular branch of work, but they will have to conform to the Institute’s standard of ethics in all matters. In view of the fact that they are to have none of the ordinary privileges or services rendered to the 5 Fellows and Associates, it is clear that they should not be asked to pay the full entrance fee or subscription.I leave it to you to make up your minds as to whether this new category is likely to be attractive to a large number of persons. My own feeling is that it will not. It is frankly a device to avoid the sting of compulsion, and I firmly believe that any person coming initially within the new category will soon wish to be “one of us ” by transferring to the Associateship, which-by definition-he will be eligible to do without examina- tion. OF PASTFELLOWS FOR ADMISSIONINELIGIBILITY OR ASSOCIATES TO THE NEW CATEGORY It has been suggested that it is unfair that persons who have been Fellows or Associates, and have ceased to be for any reason, should not be eligible for admission to the new category.would like to explain the reasons for this provision. It arises largely out of the Censorship system. I would remind you that if, in the opinion of the Censors, any Fellow or Associate has been guilty of professional misconduct, they may call upon him to resign. If he does so, nothing more can be said, nor may the reasons why he has resigned be disclosed. It would obviously be unfair to you as members of the professional body that a person who had, in the eyes of the Censors, professionally disgraced himself, should be eligible to be in any way associated with the Institute. Furthermore, the Council felt that there may be some slight tendency for a few persons to seek admission to the Associateship in order to obtain some particular facility, and then after the desire for that particular service had been satisfied, wish to transfer to the new category; then at a later date having a desire perhaps to use the Institute’s Appointments Register, or the Benevolent Fund, might wish to become again an Associate.In other words, the position of the Institute would not be fairly protected if a man were to think that he could “hop in and out” from one category to another as it suited his immediate and rather short-sighted views of his interests. It has been suggested to us that the new category should be extended to include persons other than graduates of Universities, and in this connection I want to make a few points clear:- The application and credentials of any person who desires to come into this new category will be individually scrutinised by 6 the Institute, in exactly the same way as in the case of applica-tions for admission to the Associateship and Fellowship.The Institute cannot give professional recognition to any body of persons without such individual scrutiny. It has been suggested that because the Diplomas of one or two colleges are at present accepted as exempting from the Institute’s examination, persons holding such Diplomas should be eligible for admission to the new category, but I hope that you will agree that it would be impossible to include in a Charter, as a general principle, any provision dealing with such cases.Diplomas of Technical Colleges vary so greatly that it must remain for the Council of the Institute to decide from time to time as to which of these may be so accepted. In conclusion, I would like to refer to a few suggestions which have been made with regard to procedure in calling this meeting. It appears that a few Fellows and Associates feel that these proposals have been rather “sprung” upon them. I would remind you, therefore, that the general nature of the proposals was explained at the Conference of Hon. Secretaries of Local Sections held on the 26th June, and that the Council decided that copies of the proposed Petition and Supplemental Charter should be sent to all Fellows and Associates early in September, so that Local Sections would have time to meet to consider the proposals if they wished to do so. With regard to the actual issue of notices of the meeting, etc., all I can say is that the correct procedure is laid down in great detail in the present By-laws, and that the Council has followed this procedure in every particular, as it was bound to do. 7 PRINTEDBY W. HEFFER I SONSLTD. CAMBRIDGE