MUSEUM’S S.O.S.

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 360, 22 May 1928, Page 14

MUSEUM’S S.O.S.

£B,OOO WANTED YEARLY NEW BUILDING MAY REMAIN CLOSED It is estimated that it will cost £B,OOO annually to run the Auckland War Memorial Museum, generally conceded to be the finest memorial of its kind in Australia or New Zealand. If the £4,000 asked for this year is not forthcoming the doors of the museum must remain closed. “We simply must have the money. We cannot possibly run the museum on less,” declared the president, Mr. H. E. Vaile, who was again elected to that position at last evening’s annual meeting of the institute. “We say this in no carping or defiant spirit!” If the doors of the museum remained closed, he declared, it would be an everlasting disgrace to Auckland. The council had been up against a very hard proposition in regard to finance. At least £4,000 was immediately required, and not a penny less would suffice. Yet when the local bodies were approached they were “aghast!” “As a matter of fact we are just as hard up as ever we were,” Mr. Vaile explained, in reply to a question. “Although we are now asking for £4,000 which will be coupled with the £2,000 we can scratch up, we will want £B,OOO to run the museum next year. We will want the public bodies to find £6 000 of it.” The Government-maintained Dominion Museum at Wellington cost £7,000 annually, and what did the people see for it? Of that sum at least a third was contributed through taxes by the Auckland public. Sir Edwin Mitchelson, M.L.C., Sir James Parr, and Sir James Gunson, the immediate three past presidents, were elected vice-presidents. The following were re-elected to the council: Professor Thomas, Professor Worley, Mr. A. G. Lunn, and Mr. C. R. Ford. There was a good attendance of members of the Institute. THREE MONTHS YET TRANSFERRING COLLECTIONS It is possible that the collections in the old museum in Auckland will be in their new home in the Auckland Domain within three months. “We did hope to be. in the new building before last Christmas,” Mr. Vaile, president of the Institute, explained at last evening’s annual meeting. “But there have been unavoidable delays, and it will be two or three months yet before we are in it.” A considerable portion of the exhibits from the museum, however, were now in the new building. “We thought it only right that they should be placed in safe and secure premises,” he added. Every assistance had been given by the contractors in regard to the completion of the new building. It was impossible. Mr. Vaile emphasised, to do much with the zoological and other sections, until the museum had been transferred to its new home in the Domain. NO HELP FROM ONEHUNGA REQUEST FOR FUNDS DECLINED The town clerk of Auckland advised the Onehunga Borough Council at its meeting last evening that at a meet* ing of local authorities on May 8, convened for the purpose of providing funds for the upkeep of the Auckland Institute and Museum, it was recommended that legislation be promoted this session to enable local authorities to contribute £6,000 a year toward the support of the museum. The amount that Onehunga was expected to pay was assessed at £lB4 4s 2d. The Mayor said that the council! had no money for this purpose, and as the estimates for the current year had been struck, the request was declined.