From Henry Barkly to William Hooker   24 July 1861

Melbourne

24th July 1861

My dear Sir William,

Since the receipt by last mail of your letter of the 18th May¹ with Copy of Mr Bentham's proposals for the publication of an Australian Flora,² I have had several conversations with our friend Dr Mueller on the subject, and he has shown me today a draught of the Communication which he proposes to make to you in reply.³

I think his offer to set apart £100 a [Volume] out of the Government Vote for his own Flora (£320) is a very fair one, and I should hope that with £50 as he suggests from each of the Colonies it would induce Mr Bentham to undertake the Work. I have not the least doubt that the Government here would subscribe for Copies [likewise], & that the print[s] sale would be considerable.

It may be asked why then does Dr Mueller thus seek to prevent the public recognition of such a work by the Colony, even to the extent of engaging to pay the contribution from his own Stipend, modest as that is, in the event of the Vote for his own Work being suspended.

My idea is, for he has not fully explained his motive in the matter, — that he imagines that if the Colonial Legislature were asked to make a Grant towards the Publication of an Australian Flora by Mr Bentham in England, they would suppose that he was not considered by men of Science at home fully competent to the task and would diminish or stop the grant for his own "Plants of Victoria", to carry out which in its entirety he has devoted the rest of his life.

To those who know the state of Society here, and the incapacity of many of our Legislators to comprehend Scientific questions, this is by no means an improbable supposition. You will remember that I succeeded on your first suggestion of publishing a Flora of Australia at Home, in getting one of my Ministries to put £1000 on the Estimates for the Victorian contribution to the Work, but on a change of Ministry it was at once omitted by their successors, and I was met by the argument, we have a Government Botanist of our own, he is publishing a Book about our Plants, why are we to pay for another!

Now very likely if a Vote for the purpose were again asked, the argument would be turned the other way, and Dr Mueller would fall in the appreciation of his Paymasters, perhaps without the other grant being voted.

If Mr Bentham's work were however once started, and the first Volume could be exhibited, this difficulty would doubtless be considerably diminished, and the Sum required from this Colony is so trifling compared to the Millions it annually expends that when it was clearly seen that the [necessity] for Dr Muellers labors was not superseded, it would probably be given in a lump at once.

I shall be very glad therefore to hear that a beginning is made, for knowing the time that Mueller's work will occupy & the uncertainty of his living to finish it, — it would be a thousand pities for us to lose the assistance of so eminent a Botanist as Bentham, whose Work as projected would be a valuable compendium for everybody not forgetting Tyros in Botany like myself.

Yours very truly

Henry Barkly