ART UNIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 17 June 1926, Page 4

ART UNIONS

TO BE' RESTRICTED TO WORKS OF ART IMPORTANT MINISTERIAL STATEMENT (United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. In making his announcement regarding the stoppage of big raffles Hon. R. F. Bollard said : "The decision will not af? feet small raffles for works of art, for instance, paintings, drawings, sculpture and so on to raise money for desirable objects, so, long as the Act is complied with. Many of the latter are held to benefit charitable bodies doing splendid philanthropic work in the community. Almost daily 1 receive applications for that class of raffle, some coming from returned soldiers of artistic bent who are in needy circumstances, through disabilities from war service. Many of these raffles' prize value is as low as £2O, Others come from church bodies and generally all are for pictures or similar artistic handiwork." Hon. IL F. Bollard had something to say about complaints he had received, respecting methods employed by the promoters ol one or two art unions for big prizes in mineral specimens that had been held in the Dominion. "The promoters," h'e said, "in submitting their applications had, in every way, met the conditions laid clown by the Gaming Act, and I had no option under authority given but to grant them. It was not'until after the art unions proceeded that complaints began to reach une, mainly abont the almost wholesale broadcasting of tickets. Many books of tickets were sent to persons totally opposed to such form of raising money for the. objects in view and naturally these persons raised a storm of objections. Some complainants stated that they knew of instances in which unscrupulous persons receiving books had sold them and, pocketing the proceeds had destroyed the butts and tickets, thus the persons purchasing them would not actually be in the drawing of the art union. For those reasons I stopped the broadcasting of tickets some time ago, but some of the promotid not wholly heed the restrictions. There also came into art unions a professional promoter, and flotation expenses reached some thousands of pounds. There was one case some time ago where an art union in iNew Zealand raised £32,000 and it had cost £16,000. These, are some of the reasons which actuated Cabinet in deciding to restrict art unions to work of art.