The Royal Academy have at last officially broken silence on
the question of the Chantrey Trust in a Memorandum on the Report of the House of Lords' Committee published as a Par- liamentary paper on Monday. While unable to accept all the conclusions of the Committee's Report, the Royal Academy express their readiness to meet the suggestions it contains. They deprecate the proposed appointment of a Committee of three as being (1) in contravention of the will ; (2) un- likely to be more impartial than the whole Council of ten ; and (3) unable by its numbers to render equal justice to the rival claims of painting and sculpture. They accord- ingly propose to appoint two or more Sub-Committees of not more than three members of the Royal Academy—this does not necessarily include Associates, as the Committee recommended--each to consist of sculptors and painters alone, to report on and recommend works suitable for pur- chase, the power of purchase remaining, as at present, with the Council. The recommendation of the Committee relative to the commissioning of works of sculpture from an original model already approved is endorsed, subject to the proviso that the Royal Academy should retain the right to refuse the finished work ; but they do not hold it necessary to effect any modification in the clause of the will forbidding the purchase of works otherwise eligible, but not entirely executed within the shores of Great Britain. The Royal Academy, it will thus be seen, while far from adopting the attitude of the reus confitens, are evidently disposed in some directions to relax that "unduly narrow construction placed on certain terms of the will by successive Councils," animadverted on in the Report of the House of Lords' Committee.
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