STATE OF PENURY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 5

STATE OF PENURY.

PLIGHT OF THE MUSEUM. POSSIBILITY OF LOCKED DOORS. £6000 URGENTLY REQUIRED. "Unfortunately we are just as hard up as ever—we are always in a fearful state of penury—unless we can get £6000, which we simply must have, we cannot possibly open the doors of the new War Memorial Museum," said Air. H. E. Vaile, president of the Auckland Institute and War Memorial Museum, at the annual meeting last night.

Mr. Vaile said that this year the institute asked the City Council for £4000. At this request the council stood aghast. "With our own subscriptions and a grant of £2000 from the City Council, we have managed to get over the past year. We have asked the Auckland local bodies to subscribe, and if we do not obtain £6000, which is the absolute minimum required, then we will have to keep the doors of the new museum closed. If that happens, then it will be a lasting disgrace to the city of Auckland. I am not saying this in any carping spirit, neither do I intend it to be taken as a threat," added Mr. Vaile, "but the position is that we have got to remove from our present building and set up the exhibits in the new building. We have not got the money to do all this."

The president stated that the museum building in the Domain was expected to be out of the contractors' hands in about two months' time. This year the institute must have at least a total of £0000 and thereafter £8000 a year. The Wellington museum was maintained by the Government at the expense of the general taxpayers. And what sort of a museum was it? Nothing like what the new War Memorial Museum would be when completed. The cost to maintain the Auckland Museum last year was £7000, the people of Auckland contributing a third of the amount through the taxes. Necessity To Borrow Money.

Another difficulty which had cropped up was mentioned by Mr. Vaile. Half of the new showcases for the new museum had arrived. The institute had found it necessary to borrow the money to pay for them, pending the completion of the sale of the present museum. The sale would not be completed until the building was evacuated. However, in all other respects, said the president, the past year had been a most satisfactory one. A great many exhibits had been transferred to the new museum, and the institute had to thank the contractors for the facilities placed at their disposal for housing the treasures. Great interest had been displayed during the year by Mr. W. Cecil Leys and his sister, Mrs. Sehvyn Upton, who had continued tneir benefactions as a memorial to their late father, Dr. T. W. Leys. There was also the bequest of £1000 by the late Mr. Henry Shaw to the library. "Is it not much better to leave money this way than to leave money to be spent on the most hideous disfigurements and frightful monstrosities in marble, called tombstones, that we see out in Waikumete. It is to leave money for' some permanent thing that could adorn tlie museum."

Mr. Vaile, speaking of the future, said it was intended to reserve space in the ethnological section for two memorial groups to the Maori race, one group depicting the Maori at home and the other, the Maori at war. Such groups would cost £1000, jf done properly. He expressed the hope that some generous citizen would assist the institute by providing these groups.

Professor Worlev agreed with Mr. Vailc's remarks. "Why we could get a group of sharks—(laughter)—sharks in the sea, I mean. We could have a group of giraffes for someone else—have various groups that we could remember people by." (Laughter.)

The report and balance-sheet, which have been already published, were adopted.

Mr. H. E. Vaile was re-elected president. In accordance with the rule which provides that the three immediate past presidents shall be vice-presidents, Sir .Tallies Parr, Sir James Gunson, and Sir Edwin Mitchelson were re-elected to that office. Messrs, A. G. Lunn, C. R. Ford and Professors A. P. W. Thomas and F. P. Worlev, retiring members of the council, were unanimously re-elected.