ART UNIONS

Southland Times, Issue 20771, 11 May 1929, Page 17

ART UNIONS

GOLD SPECIE PRIZES. DEPUTATION ASKS FOR RESTORATION. (Per United Press Association.) Napier, May 9. The Napier Thirty Thousand Club to-day approached the Prime Minister with a view to inducing him to endeavour to make it legal to offer gold specie as prizes for art unions. Speakers recognized that the holding of art unions with gold prizes was stopped by Parliament because of the extravagant organization consuming most of the profit, but in Napier, the club paid all expenses and distributed the profits among sporting bodies or used them for effecting improvements about the town. ' Sir Joseph Ward replied that if all art unions were conducted as in Napier, there would probably not have been any need for prohibiting gold specie prizes, but in many cases the organization had been so extravagant and the distribution of tickets so indiscriminate that the profits were very small. For this ' reason, Parliament put a stop to it altogether. He did not know if it would be possible to restore gold prizes as once the right was taken away it was not the easiest thing to have •it resurrected. The matter was under revision, but if any change was made, it would be necessary that the administration be in responsible hands, and the art union confined to a small area.