Item 6 - Letter from James Stephen

Westbourne Terrace, W. London - George W. Hastings, Secretary to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, has written to JS [letter attached] to inform him that they have written to WW to ask him to become President of their Society. If JS knows WW personally could he write to WW to explain the nature of the office: 'I have to say in support of their request to you, is that I, being quite unused to public meetings, scientific assemblages, and political partisanship of any kind, found the gathering of this Society at Liverpool last year - amusing and edifying what I learnt from it was chiefly how great is the homage which the democracy are demanding, and how liberally that demand is appealed to by the more active and stirring pack of our aristocracy. I sat four days presiding over a kind of unorganised debating Society, which discussed all manner of questions, without approaching a conclusion on any, and which took for granted much which seemed to me very absurd. They were clearly animated, and quite impatient of contradiction. I left Liverpool with some views which were new to me of my native land; glad that I had been there, and glad to come away'.