Council office, was appointed to fill the vacancy of Hon Secretary as required by Article 11 of our Rules. You will, however, not find her name on the Council list in the papers sent you relating to the business of this Annual General Meeting, for she left the Colony on transfer, only a few months after taking over the duties of Hon. Secretary. We were fortunate in being able to persuade Mr. Michael Smithies, a member of the administrative staff of the University of Hong Kong, to undertake the secretarial duties. We are indeed fortunate in obtaining his services.
The Journal. During the first decade of its existence, The Journal has rightly become a recognized repository for information concerning eastern Asia, and is to be found in the shelves of many libraries of cultural and academic institutions throughout the world. Like all such publications however, the cost of maintaining its size and standard has risen tremendously of late and your Council has very reluctantly had to raise the selling price per volume from fifteen to eighteen dollars to meet this additional expenditure. This has been done however without affecting the free issue of one volume per member per year. Members are only affected if they wish to have extra copies; then they, along with non-members, will have to pay at the increased rate for both new issues and for back numbers.
Accommodation. This is as much an institutional problem in Hong Kong as it is a problem for private individuals and business firms.
The problem affects us in two ways: accommodation for our library and the storage of our journals, and accommodation for our meetings. Regarding the former, for years we have been fortunate in having help from the Librarian of the University of Hong Kong, and from the Hong Kong Representative of the British Council. But in both these cases, our increasing needs can no longer be met without detriment to the space requirements of our friends. We have, therefore, now had to rent godown space for our own bulk needs, although the British Council has very kindly agreed to continue to house our library books on its shelves for the convenience of members. We are most grateful for this help.