MUSEUMS’ PROBLEM

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 10

MUSEUMS’ PROBLEM

Sources Of Finance

Museums were faced with a situation in which the only body to which applications for financial assistance could be made could not meet them, said the director of the Canterbury Museum (Dr. R. S. Duff) to a meeting of the Museum Trust Board. When the Golden Kiwi Lottery Board of Control was set up in 1963 no provision was made for a cultural committee which would meet the capital needs of museums and art galleries, although widespread grants had been made to institutions established for sporting, social and charitable purposes, he said. The Department of Internal Affairs had no provision for assistance. This left the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council as the sole source of financial support, he said. The chairman of the council (Mr G. G. Watson) had already said that council funds were sufficient only for its broad policy of supporting the performing arts. “We have reached an impasse,” Dr. Duff said. The board agreed to support Auckland members of the Art Galleries and Museums’ Association now preparing a case to put to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs on the lack of Government subsidies on museum and art gallery building projects.