HOUSING THE COLLECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 58

HOUSING THE COLLECTION.

DR HOCKEN'S SUGGESTIONS. It is not generally known tihat the whole credit of having saved the official documents of the New Zealand Oonrpany from total or partial destruction, and having them tabulated and sent to New Zealand, is due to Dr Hocken. A Times reporter waited on the doctor on the sth, and had a chat with -him on the subject. " When I was at Home about the year 1903," said Dr Hocken, " I was asked to examine all the records of the New Zealand Company which lay at the Public Records Office in London. I spent between two and three months on the work, and made a. -very complete list of all the articles there, and they consisted, as the Wellington telegram states, of the whole of tho documents of the New Zealand Company, which, under the terms of its charter, it had to yield up to the Imperial Government in 1651. There were .thousands upon thousands cf books and papers of all kinde, and I examined and tabulated them all. 1 had two or three assistants placed at my disposal, and we brought the documents down from the rooms in which thej were stored into another room, which I used, where there was a large table, and here they were all examined. "At the conclusion of my work I received the warm thanks of the Colonial Office, and in replying I strongly suggested that the colony should have possession of tho documents!' for to the people of New Zealand they were very interesting records indeed. The British Government took objection to this on the ground that €hey belonged to the public archives; but I pointed out that they were rather the archives of a private company, and not of the Kingdom. From time to time since then, in correspondence, I pressed this matter again, and I was very pleased to know, about three or four years ago, that the British Government contemplated lianaing them over tp the New Zealand Government. The difficulty then was that the New Zealand Govsrnment found that it had no place in which to house so valuable a set of documents, and nothing further was done. It is satisfactory, therefore, to know that they have at last arrived in the Dominion. "I am not aware now that the Government has any place in which to house the collection, but it appears to me that there is room for it in the Hocken Wing at the Museum here, and I am going to write to the Government on this very point. The Hocken collection, for tne accommodation of which that wing was built, was given by me to the people of the Dominion of New Zealand — not, as has been supposed, to the province of Otago. My collection is of equal interest to every part of New Zealand, nnd is not confined to Otago alone, and my desire that it should bo located here arose from the fact that this is the place where I have spent most cf my lifetime, and where I hope that for many years yet the collection will bo under my personal supervision, and where I may see any alterations that are needed carried out. It is because of fhe fact that tho Hoekon Wing was built for suoh a purpose, and will contain a somewhat similar collection, that I think this collection of old documents that has just arrived might very well be housed here. Wellinerton is oertainl) the central town, but I do no? know whore the documents could be stored there. I would not care to see them put into the Government offices, which are of wood, where they mijiht be destroyed by fire." And then the doctor, his memory stirred by the mention of the Governm-ant offices, told how lie discovered the lo?t Treaty of Waitangi buried in a heap of old papers and rubbish in a dungeon underneath tho building, whero, had he not found it, it must have been destroyed. Dr Horken said that ho lia<l had roi.fciderablc correspondence uiUi 2ilx L^ttelioii

concerning the collection, and Sir Charles Lucas, when here recently on behalf of the Colonial Office, had taken a warm interest in tho who'e matter. The Doctor went on to say that the process of destroying these old documents was very interesting, as showing what extraordinary care was taken by the authorities in disposing of masses, of papers that had< accumulated century after century, to see that only documents of no value were destroyed. It was owing to the anxiety of the British Government that nothing of value or use should bo thrown away that Dr Hocken was asked to examine the New Zealand Company's documents and ascertain their precise nature.