The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury state that ‘they will be prepared to enter upon the details of these questions in communication with the Trustees, and even, if it should be desired, to offer suggestions upon them.’ Your Committee are of opinion that the proffered assistance should be at once accepted; and that in order to derive all possible advantage from that assistance a small Committee of Trustees should be appointed to carry on the necessary communications with the Treasury, either verbally or otherwise, and to consider with their Lordships all suggestions that might be offered respecting the points touched upon in this Report, and their details. This Committee would be similar to that which the Trustees requested the Treasury to appoint, by letter of the twentieth of June, 1829, and which was afterwards appointed by the Trustees themselves, with the approbation of their Lordships, to direct and superintend, not only the works then in progress, but those to be afterwards undertaken. On the tenth of February, 1862—after the communication of this Report to each of the Trustees individually—the recommendations of the Sub-Committee were unanimously approved, at a Special General Meeting of the Trustees, at which twenty-four members of the Board were present. [Sidenote: _Correspondence Relating to the British Museum_, No. 97 of Session 1862.] After the adoption of the plans thus accepted, another Sub-Committee of Trustees was appointed to confer with the Treasury in order to their realisation. Before Parliament, this plan of severance and of re-arrangement—after some modifications of detail which are too unimportant for remark—was supported, in 1862, with the whole influence of the Government. But it failed to win any adequate amount either of parliamentary or of public favour. Some men doubted if the estimated saving, as between building at Bloomsbury and building at Kensington, would or could be realized. Others denied that the evils or inconveniences attendant upon severance would be compensated by any adequate gain on other points. [Sidenote: THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE OF 1862.] The popularity of the Natural History Collections; the facilities of access to Great Russell Street; the weighty—though far from unanimous—expressions of opinion from eminent men of science in favour of continuance and enlargement, rather than of severance and removal; all these and other objections were raised, and were more or less dwelt upon, both in the House of Commons and in scientific circles out of doors, scarcely less entitled to discuss a national question of this kind. The Commons eventually decided against the project by their vote of the 19th May, 1862. Substantially,—and in spite of small subsequent additions from time to time to the buildings at Bloomsbury—the question of 1862 is still the question of 1870. As I have said, it has been my object to state that question rather than to discuss it.