THE FRUITS OF AGITATION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 147, 7 June 1911, Page 11

THE FRUITS OF AGITATION.

The case of the National Art Galleries in Scotland illustrates the advantages of persistent and welldirected agitation and representation. In the matter of financial grants from the public purse for her national institutions, Scotland has long been the stepchild of the Government. Where England and Ireland got their thousands, without apparently a grudge, pounds were doled out to Scotland with miserly stinginess. Within the last year or two matteis have somewhat improved, and in the case of the National Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh the total sums now provided by Parliament annually amount to over £9OOO, as against £2OOO formerly. An interesting deal is announced between Parliament and the Royal Scottish Academy, whose art collection, valued at about £30,000, is housed in the National Galleries. The Academy have agreed to transfer absolutely to the nation the whole of its collection, the Treasury, on their part, undertaking to provide a sum of £lB,OOO for the conversion of an adjoiningbuilding, known as tne Royal Institution, so as to adapt it for occupation by the Royal Scottish Aca-

demy. Simultaneously with the conclusion of this bargain the president of the Academy has been able to announce the achievement of a fund of £lO,OOO by public subscription for the purpose of enabling the Academy, in its new home, to “maintain in its annual and other exhibitions an artistic standard befitting a national institution of artists.”