“Absurd Ruling” On Museum Grants

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31658, 19 April 1968, Page 1

“Absurd Ruling” On Museum Grants

The continued denial of grants from the Kiwi lottery fund to museums and art galleries was criticised at a meeting of the Canterbury Museum Trust Board yesterday.

“For the third year in succession, the Art Galleries and Museums’ Association of New Zealand was treated to the absurd spectacle of the Government (this time the Prime Minister) ruling that, as the needs of museums and art galleries were ‘primarily artistic and cultural,’ their capital requirements could not be sought from the Kiwi lottery fund and so remained *within the sphere of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council’,” said the director of the museum (Dr R. S. Duff). “For its part the Arts Council again disclaimed responsibility on the ground that, as it had adopted as a priority the support of the performing arts, the Government grant was insufficient to include capital grants of any sort,” Dr Duff said. As a first step towards re-

solving the deadlock, the association would ask the Arts Council to state in writing to the association and to the Prime Minister that, while museum and art gallery needs were included in the Arts Council act of establishment, it would not meet subsidy applications. The association would also arrange for a member institution to place a test case before the Government Dr Duff said he would not want this case to be the Canterbury Museum’s subsidy claim for a new wing to mark its own centennial, but rather a museum which had no proper building. The situation was a merry-go-round worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan. Mr P. J. Skellerup, a board member and chairman of the Christchurch City Council's art gallery committee said it was time someone took the cat by the tail.