1. It is within the knowledge of the Lords of the Treasury, that from the time of the earliest announcement of the proposed Exhibition it has always been intended that it should take place in the Metropolis. Not only was such an intention matter of notoriety at the time that the question of issuing a Royal Commission was under consideration, but the Commission itself, when issued formally recited that it was proposed "To establish an Enlarged Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, to be holden in London, in the year 1851;" and it was to further the holding of such an exhibition that the present Commissioners were specially appointed. 2. Considering the importance of the undertaking, and the circumstances attending its promulgation, the selection of the Metropolis as its intended locality appears to have been both natural and proper. It will be borne in mind that the exhibitions which have from time to time been held in foreign countries have generally, and, as the Commissioners believe, invariably, been held in the capitals of the respective countries. In the present case it was peculiarly important that an undertaking which required the constant superintendence of a body of Commissioners, whose occupations for the most part confine them to London, should be carried on within their immediate cognisance, and not removed to a distant situation. 3. It being thus distinctly evident that the Exhibition ought to take place in London, it is further obvious that the actual site which may be selected for it should be within the precincts of, or in the closest vicinity to, the most central and accessible parts of the Metropolis itself. It need hardly be pointed out that it would be objectionable to impose upon persons who may have come to London from a great distance the necessity of an additional journey to visit the Exhibition; a consideration which has already been urged upon the Commissioners by the representatives of several of the most important provincial towns, who are apprehensive of the inconvenience to which artizans in particular might thus be subjected. Moreover, the removal of the Exhibition to any distance sufficient to diminish the number of visitors would not only militate against its essential character of general accessibility, but might most seriously affect the receipts upon which its self-supporting character must depend, a point upon which it appears that much stress has been laid.