WAR MUSEUM

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 152, 26 December 1945, Page 4

WAR MUSEUM

ART GALLERY PROPOSAL

The committee of management of the National Art Gallery has made recommendations to the Government and to the Returned Services' Asosciation that a war museum to house the records and other materials of the two world wars should be established in Wellington. The project is discussed by the committee in its annual report. "There is a large quantity of materials from the last war—works of official artists, records, and other materials —and these have been very extensively added to since the beginning of the recent war," states the report. "They belong to a special category, many of them being of historic rather than aesthetic value, and it will be necessary to house them in some special building where they can be available to the public. "The National Art Gallery has not sufficient space to house even a small portion of the pictures from the last war. It will be seen, therefore, that with the large number of additional pictures from the recent war it is quite impossible to house them in the National Art Gallery. Furthermore, in the opinion Of the committee, these pictures should form part of the War Museum collection.

"Most countries have a war museum apart from an art gallery, and the committee suggests that such a museum would form a suitable memorial for the present war. "It was suggested further that consideration might be given to the question of whether the present Art Gallery and War Memorial Carillon would not make an excellent war museum. This would necessitate the provision of an art gallery elsewhere in the city."

On September 30 there were 384,261 holders of radio licences in the Dominion, as against 380,128 on March 31. The number on September 30, 1944, was 381,549. The greatest number of licences issued so far this year was at Wellington (134,978). Auckland was next with 128,649. . Canterbury and Otago issued 66,783 and 51,070 licences respectively.