ART UNION FUNDS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 10

ART UNION FUNDS

Protest by Minister OLD PEOPLE’S HOME Discussion at Napier Dominion Special Service. Hastings, December 14. Criticism of the Hawke’s Bay Hospt tai Board's proposal to organise a national art union to raise funds for erection of the Park Island Old People Home, which was destroyed at the time of the earthquake, was levelled at the board this afternoon by the Napier Ministers’ Association. One member ol the board at least gave scant tion to the objection, quoting Shakespeare’s words, “In order to do a great right we should not be afraid to do a little wrong.” The board finally decided to inform the Ministers’ Association that it could not depart from its previous decision. The association based Its objections upon, firstly, that gambling was a social evil, and the,habit was detrimental to the moral well-being of the community and to the character of the young people; secondly, that this means of raising money was an offence to a large section of the community; and thirdly, that the case of the sick and aged folk was the privilege of the whole of Hawke’s Bay, and should be undertaken accordingly. “When I read my agenda paper and saw this letter, a sense of shame cam< over me,” said Mr. H. Hill, when ths board considered the letter from the association. “I have no doubt that if the writer and I met, and had to decide something, we would not hesitate about taking a penny from our pocket and saying, ‘Heads I win, tails you win. Is the holding of an art union any worse than that?” Mr. Hill went on to say that the board had been ten months without a place in which to house its old folk, and people with the interests of the old men at heart had come forward with an offer to run an art union to provide the means to build the home, “What is wrong with that?” he said. “Shakespeare says that Tn order to do a great right we should not be afraid to do a little wrong.’ The proposal to hold an art union is the exact thing we ought to foster. We are on the right track, and I hope this remarkable, and to mg, meaningless letter, will not ba taken any notice of ,by the board. There is nothing wrong In art unions. They have dozens of raffles in churches, and I would like to know the difference. We should tell the ministers that we are quite capable of judging what is right for our old men. Other members of the board expressed the view that the matter was just one of opinion.