OF FIELD CLUBS 171
well enough to tell you that when membership approaches that
mark he will be thinking in terms of four figures.
Then, what of our Council? Is it decrepit? I wish I could
invite you to preside at its meetings : the chairman is certainly no
shepherd presiding over a flock of sheep. When our crisis came,
a year ago—and it was a crisis—I found a band of staunch sup-
porters, supporters with vigour, and with ideas, and ideas often
contrary to my own, supporters whose views you could respect
even if you did not agree with them. To Club members who
regard their council as an exclusive, detached body I say, it is in
your hands to choose your council and officers. Come along
and help us, we want you: but when you do, I hope you will not
expect to have all your ideas adopted : we have ideas of our own,
for which we are prepared to fight, and they may run counter to
yours.
Finally, perhaps a word of warning will not be out of place.
I have said that I believe the progress of our Club shows an upward
trend : what are we doing to accelerate that movement ? Any
society or club can usually claim two elements—the go-ahead
type who wants changes over-night and is intolerant if they come
more slowly, and that other type, we call them die-hards or
reactionaries now, but I prefer to call them the more conservative
type, who are unreasonable enough to prefer evolution to proceed
slowly and on a solid basis. Some of the latter, it is true, have
old-fashioned ideas, but old-fashioned ideas are not, ipso facto,
wrong any more than modern ideas are necessarily right. At
least, our predecessors had time to think and at least some of the
things which they advocated and supported have stood the test
of time. I am glad we have these two elements in our Club for
I believe they are mutually helpful. I hope the progressives will
stir the conservative element out of the lethargy which it usually
finds in anyone who is not in accord with its views. I hope the
conservative element will act as a brake on the progressive ele-
ment. I do not want to see our Club stagnate, but I would
prefer it not to go forward by leaps and bounds : volcanic energy
is spectacular, but it is apt to get out of hand and do unpredictable
things. I want to see steady progress, with all members pulling
their weight and taking an active part in the management of the
Club's affairs and I want to see a realistic modern outlook, a
club, so to speak, with its head in the clouds but its feet firmly on
the ground. In this way we may feel secure for we need have no
fear for the future of the Club : and when the progressive element
matures into the conservative element, for that is not seldom its
awful fate, there will be the new and younger progressive element
to leaven our progress and to laugh at the old-fashioned ideas of
the last decade.