" RECESS PRIVILEGES."

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 79, 5 April 1910, Page 8

" RECESS PRIVILEGES."

PARLIAMENTARY LIBRART. "A STALE OLD MISREPRESENTATION." A telegram on another page of today's Po>t sets out various statements of thu Auckland Star louccrniny the Parliamentary Library. The burden of the complaint is that an uudue proportion of tiction is purchased for tin* library, and that Wellington people enjoy unwarranted recess privileges, at the tost of the general taxpayers. The Chief Parliamentary Librarian (Mr. C. Wilson), when questioned about the Star's expostulation to-day, said that he would be chary about voicing extensive comment till he had seen the full text of the article. However, the allegation about the purchase of fiction was "a stale old misrepresentation" which had been frequently refuted. Out of £600 or £700 expended annually on books, only about £35, on an average, was allotted to fiction. He was at a (oss to understand how the Auckland Star could be under a misapprehension in this matter, in view of the fact that the editor was present at the Libraries Conference in Dunedin at Easter when Mr. Wilson gave a detailed account of | the working of the privilege nystem. As a matter of fact (continued Mr. Wilson) no latter-day fiction v issued to the holders of ordinary recess privileges. Works of fiction aro barred to them with the exception of books by the following authors : — Defoe, Johnson, Sterne, Fielding, Smollet, Richardson, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, George Eliot, the Brontes, Marryat, Lever, Lvtton, Trollope, Dumas, Balzac, Black, Kingsley, and Meredith. Any of the works of these author* marked "reference" are. it must be understood, not issued. Current fiction w icsned to only those who hold the full privilege — including the Governor » staff, the higher officer* of Parliament, tho Judge*, the professors of the University College, the head of each Church, and a few others, totalling about thirty. There was practically a unanimous opinion a* tho Libraries Conference that it would be impossible to send the Parliamentary Library book.s all over the country, concluded Jfr. Wilson. If such a practice were adopted the institution would practically erase to be a reference library.