CENTENARY OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 114, 15 May 1924, Page 3

CENTENARY OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

BADINAGE OF PRIME MINISTER : AHD LORD CUKZON.

BRILLIANT GATHERING,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDOX, April 3.

Ko wonder the Premier was in & merry mood last night when he spoke at the Centenary celebration of the National Gallery, for he had just escape defeat by the help of Mr. Pringle's loquacity, that doughty stonewaller talking out the Government Rent and Eviction Bill.

Mr. Mac Donald presided over the Government dinner, and at it were present representatives of nearly every great art gallery in the world.

He recalled that exactly 100 years ago at that hour (10 p.m.) a resolution was moved in the House of Comons that that the House do vote £60,000 to purchase, preserve and look after a private collection of pictures then allocated in Pall Mall.

"I hold this conviction," he said later, "that a Government that is indifferent to good art and the chastity of public appreciation is blind to the highest duty that is imposed upon it.

"To cultivate the finest susceptibilities of the people, to impart into the people's heart that instinctive appreciation of the difference between vulgarity and good taste is the delight of private people and certainly the duty of a Government.

"In all matters regarding art and the spiritual expression of the human mind. it is essential that we should maintain first, spontaneity and liberty; secondly catholicity.

"Truth lias yet neither been spoken nor discovered. When the absolute truth and the absolute beauty have been discovered then it is time for humanity to write 'finis , in the story of life."'

Lord Cuzon, proposing "The Founders and Benefactors of the National Gallery," said it was right that on such an occasion they should concentrate the thangsgiving and gratitude of a century. After the speech to which they had listened he -was not sure that they ought not to add to their list of patrons the present Prime Minister. The Prime Minister (he continued) told us he was not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he ie the Firet Lord of the Treasury, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is under his complete control. Let us remind him that in only a week or two from now the Budget is coming on, and that the enormous and underserved surplus with which hie Government will be called upon to deal is the exclusive result of the economy of its predecessors, and if there is any genuine meaning in his professions to-night—and I am sure there was —it is a perfect certainty that our grant will be doubled. Let them hope, he continued, that a century hence the name of Ramsay Mac Donald would appear on the card, and it would be said of him that, as Prime Minister of a Labour Government, he secured greater recognition for the principles of beauty and the love of art than his predecessors ever did. Mr. . Mac Donald had. admitted that his existence as a Minister was precarious. I believe that it is absolutely true (added Lord Curzon amid laughter). 1 am not certain whether he is not in 'peril this very , night. The Prime Minister (in a whisper): It is over.

Lord Curzon: Oh. it is over. The Prime Minister (in another whisper): 1 have got through. Lord Curzon: And he has got through. Well, bo much the better. He has survived to mv political sorrow, but to my artistic delight. It still remains for' him to present a Budget. Mr. Snowden is still in his pocket, and is it not absolutely clear that, having been saved from premature death to-night, possibly—although I do not the votes of my own party, is it not clear that he owes rs (the National Gallery) a debt in return. When Mr. Snowden brings his Budget in. let us hope the grant will be not £5000, not £10.000, but £20,000. That, I submit, is the logical result of the somewhat uncalculating eloquence with which he regaled us to-night. Well, apart from chaff, I do not think any company of lovers of art ever listened to a speech from a leading statesman which can have given them srreater pleasure or satisfaction than that which fell from the Prime Minister to-night. It was inspired by a genuine love of the arts, and by a profound and sincere admission of the duty that is owed by a Government of any great country to the arts.

A brilliant assemblage comprising foreiim representatives, heads of great Continental collections, attended. The Louvre was represented by M. Jean Guiffrey, Berlin by Dr. Friedlandpr (Dr. Bode is unwell), the Prado. Madrid, hv the Duke of Alba and Don. F. de MotomayoT, Vienna hv Dr. G. Gluck. Antwerp by Mr. Buschmann, apd the ■Rvks Museum, Amsterdam, by Dr. De"orfer.

With such an assemblage at one's niercv it would haye been entertaining to set their frank views on the subjects lately aired by Mr George Moore. Are our pictures spoiled by cleaning, have then been hung as they should, and most important of all. are our pictures themselves as pood as those of Continental collections?