HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 102, 30 April 1921, Page 9

HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS

TO THI IDITOI. Sir,—The local in Thursday's issue having reference to the prospective possession by the Auckland Public Librtuy of the. Maori manuscripts, etc.,/collected by Sir George Grey, and by him pre*> sented to the Capetown Public Library, gives credit to Archdeacon H. W. Williams as being mainly responsible for the movement leading up \to this, and while not wishing to deprive him of such would like to submit some claims of my own. Prior to 1918 it was generally understood in New Zealand that possession of these unique manuscripts could not be had owing to the disinclination of those possessed to part with them>. This Impression was confirmed by a statement made by the Hon. G. W. Russell, who visited Cape Colony on behalf of the New Zealand Government some' nine years ago, and also, that though Archdeacon Williams examined the collection in 1906, nothing has been done to effect the exchange until the present time. When on my way to England in the middle of 1917 I was at Capetown for one day,; and called on , Mr. A. Lloyd, the Chief Librarian, South African Public Library, Capetown, and though i*- was late on a Saturday morning he kindly showed me ' the Grey collection of 5000. volumes, 524 of which are in Maori, and many have not been translated, and when I expressed to him the uselessness of these last remaining in Cape Colony, he quite agreed and stated their proper home was New Zealand, and that he was quite agreeable to the exchange, but that impediment to it had originated in New Zealand, at which I informed him the opinion in our country was that it was quite the other way. His reply to that was that if New Zealand were agreeable all he had to do was to draft a Bill transferring the property • from the Government to the Library Trustees and have the Bill passed by Parliament. This is, we hope, now about to be done. lat once recognised there had been a misunderstanding of many years, and immediately communicated with Mr. T. Lindsay Buick and Mr. Elsdon Best, and believe that it was brought, to the notice of the Board of Science and Art by Mr. Buick, and that negotiations were re-opened)for the exchange. On my return to the Dominion towards the end of 1919, I learned the matter' was under some consideration, so communicated with the Department of Internal Affairs and learned later that if ■ the manuscripts could be obtained it would be on the condition they would be housed at Auckland, and that its Chief Clerk, Mr. Kelleher, had the matter in hand, nor would it be lost sight of. This is the interest I have taken in the matter, and will be surprised if. it has not largely been instrumental in bringing about the position as it now stands. No one more regretted the allocation of this New Zealand Native literature than the donor, and he subsequently freely expressed his feelings in his prelface to the second edition of Polynesian Mythology, 1885, and at the same time gave his reasons for its disposal, expressing the wish that the time. : would come when either country would effect the exchange which many of us hope is about to consummate. I believe the most valuable of the manuscripts were not referred to in your local; they comprise legends, poems, and histories as dictated by some of the most celebrated^ old chiefs such as Patuone, Potatau, Te Heuheu, To Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata, and others, and require translation at the hands

of the few highly-capable Maori philologists now in New Zealand. There is also in the Grey collection at Capetown an old oil-painting by P. I J. Flogan, showing Sir George Grey at a meeting of chiefs, Taupiri, on the Waikato River, 1853. , This, the Chief Librarian said, should be in New/Zealand. It can only be seen there by mounting a ladder, and there is also a .fine full length oil portrait of Grey in his Vice-Regal habilaments, which might well be copied.—l am, etc, H. FILDER, 29th April.