MAORI ARTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 December 1926, Page 3

MAORI ARTS

NEW BOARD INSTITUTED. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, November 30. In order- to foster the study and practice of Maori arts and crafts, and in accordance with an Act passed during the last Parliamentary session a Board has been set up to execute the functions of the Act. Thq personnel of the Board was to-day an--nounced by the Minister for Internal Affairs, Hon. R. E. Bollard. The Board, the members of which number eleven, is enumerated below: Chairman, the Minister for Internal Affairs: Deputy-Chairman, the Under Secretary of the Department of Internal Affairs: Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, (Minister for Cook Islands); Hon. A. T. Ngata M.P. for Eastern Maoris; Archdeacon H. W. Williams (all three members to represent the Maori Purposes Fund Control Board); Dr P. H. Buck (Director of Maori Hygiene), (Auckland); the Under-Secretary and Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department; Mr J. McDonald (Assistant Director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington); Mi- W. Page Rowe (artist and an enthusiastic member of the Anthropological Section of the N.Z. Institute); and Mr H. Hamilton (of the Dominion Museum), who is to be secretary of the Board. MINISTER’S COMMENT. WELLINGTON, November 30. Referring to Cabinet’s decision to form a Maori Arts and Crafts Board of Control, Mr. Bollard said that all New Zealanders love the Maori race and its' arts, and would welcome the action of the Government in its efforts to preserve native arts, which were admired in all parts of the world. Visitors to the Doirfinion from other countries all admired the carvings of the Maori, which were unhappily becoming rare. The Board set up, composed as it was of lovers of Maori art, should inspire fresh interest among native artists. There should accordingly be considerable progress in the near future. It was with this objective in view that the necessary legislation was passed. In the first case, the proposal came from the Maori Ethnological Research Board, which had done valuable work in this direction already, but the proposal had now the support of all resilents in the Dominion. The newly formed Board had power to establish one or more schools where Maori art can be studied and practised, for which purpose it may acquire land and buildings. The Board, has full power to handle existing exhibits of Maori art, for which purpose Parliament will appropriate and set aside a certain sum each year.