The unconstitutional and illegal proceedings of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society / by William Dickinson.

  • Dickinson, William.
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unconstitutional and illegal proceedings of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society / by William Dickinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    regulation of the Society, and I demand proofs of your gratuitous assertions. I demand also to know what right you have to assign any sinister motives to my actions, without bringing forward proofs to support your charge against me. I might decline to enter into a consideration of this charge until such proofs be adduced; but as I did attend, as one of a Deputation of Members of the Society, upon the Secretary of State, previous to the confirmation of the new code of Bye-laws of the Society, a refusal on my part to offer an explanation might be misconstrued, and I am glad to have this opportunity of explaining my reasons for joining that Deputation. The object of the Deputation named, was to point out to the Secretary of State the objections taken by Members of the Society to the Bye-laws as they then stood for his confirmation. I attended as a Member of the Society, as one personally interested in its well-being and prosperity, anxious only that we should have legal and efficient Bye-laws to guide our future proceedings. I deny your right to interfere or call into question my privilege, as a Member of the Society, to attend any Deputation or Meeting I may think proper. You are aware that throughout the period occupied in framing those Bye-laws, I did assert my right, as a Member of the Council, to express my opinions, and give my vote, on the various points brought before the Meetings, on the form and effect of the proposed Bye-laws. When I found myself in a minority, I always submitted, without observation; and I challenge any Member of the Council to point out when I have raised any factious opposition at any Meeting of the Council. The lines 96 to 101 of the Charter referred to in the above resolu- tion are as follows :— “ That at all general Meetings and Meetings of the Council, the majority of the Members present having a right to vote thereat respectively, shall decide upon the matters propounded to such Meetings, the person presiding therein having, in case of an equality of Members, a second or casting vote.” Am I really to understand that it is in virtue of this clause that the Council are empowered to call me to an account for my actions ? Are you, Gentlemen, prepared, as men of business, to assert that because a Member is compelled, by virtue of the rules of the Society, at Meetings, to yield to the majorities, he may not, therefore, openly and fearlessly express his sentiments on every subject propounded at such Meetings, or take all legal and constitutional means out of doors to comment upon such measures, and even organize combinations to subvert them ? The rule cited is common to all public and private Societies, and is not peculiar to our Association. Do we not daily see Members of Parliament, when their peculiar measures have been thrown out even by large majorities, agitate and combine with others for the purpose of subverting the existing laws of the country, and, season after season, reproduce in the House the same measures for discussion ? If, then, such a course be allowed to Members of the Legislature, when the peace of the Empire is even at stake, why should the