THE GREY COLLECTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1031, 21 January 1911, Page 8

THE GREY COLLECTION.

.. _ . MAORI MANUSCRIPTS AT CAPE TOWN. . (By Telegraph—l'rcEs Association.) ■ ■ Auckland, January 20. . Speaking,at tlie civic-reception on his return from South Africa;tho Hon. G.' i owlds referred to his negotiations for having the Maori manuscripts in the Orey collection of the' Cape Town public library returned to their natural' home in New Zealand.. He knew from an interview he had with the library authorities in Cape Town when passing through there live years ago that the only way. in which. those valuable documents could be obtained was on the basis of an exchange of tlie' South African portion of the t Grey collection in Auckland. On his previous visit he found tho library authorities were quite in favour of making,the exchange, but were of the opinion that legislative authority was required •to enable them to., act. ' Since then the trustees had a Bill presented to the' Cape Parliament dealing with' the matter, which, though it. 'passed the ' Assembly, was rejected by the Legislative Council. On his recent visit' lie interviewed the -trustees and found, that they were'still of tho same'mind, but that- they were faced with tho same difficulty. Ho also talked the matter over, with several of the. Ministers and with other leading members of Parliament,' .and expected that .another Bill would' he' promoted at an early date which he hoped'would'be passed." None of those he conferred with seemed to'be'aware of the fact that Sir George Grey, in one of his books, had' expressed the hope .that such- exchanges would take place until each library possessed the books, and manuscripts l of .greatest-local value : and interest. - '