Mr. Vaile’s Critics Defer Their Reply

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 705, 3 July 1929, Page 1

Mr. Vaile’s Critics Defer Their Reply

MR. BANKART'S REMARK “REPORT BRIMFUL OF INACCURACIES” "For the present I have no reply to make. This report is brimful of inaccuracies. Doubtless I shall reply to it in due course, but not just now.” Mr. A. S. Bankart, chairman of the Citizens' War Memorial Committee, tapped portion of the front page of yesterday’s Sun as he passed these remarks in the presence of Colonel T. H. Dawson and a reporter shortly after mid-day today. Colonel Dawson, ex-president of the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Association, had met Mr. Bankart in his office to discuss with him the challenge and the request for retraction issued by Mr. H. E. Vaile, president of the Auckland Institute and Museum, in yesterday's Sun. “A reply will have to be made, but I will not make it at present,” said Mr. Bankart when a reporter called to hear the result of their conference. Colonel Dawson agreed. COLONEL DAWSON’S ATTACK The position arises from Mr. Vaile’s resentment of an attack made on him as president of the institute by Colonel Dawson, who, when challenged by Mr. Vaile, cited Mr. Bankart as his informant. Mr. Vaile applied to Mr. Bankart for an explanation or withdrawal of the attack, but considers that he has not received satisfaction from either of his critics. In consequence of this, he placed the whole of the correspondence at the disposal of The Sun, with the object of stating his case in the open. “DIVERTED PURPOSE” In the course of an address at the annual meeting of the Returned Soldiers’ Association on April 30, Colonel Dawson, in discussing the progress of the museum, said that “ . . . as time went on the memorial features were lost sight of in the enthusiasm of the members of the Auckland Institute for a great museum. No one of those members had been more assiduous in this diverted purpose than the present head of the institute, who was chiefly : responsible for the nonmemorial ‘extras’ which had made the museum so embarrassingly costly.” To this and other remarks Mr. Vaile took exception, describing them as “grossly and hopelessly untrue.” Colonel Dawson claimed that his informant was Mr. Bankart. Interviewed prior to the meeting with Mr. Bankart this morning. Colonel Dawson said that his only wish had been, and was now, to see all arguments and recriminations set aside, so that the best could be done for the war memorial. He had nothing to retract. ERRORS OF OMISSION “Anything I said was with the object of stating the facts we discovered after making inquiries and investigating the position," he remarked. “I had been away when the work at the museum was going ahead, and when I returned I found the changes complained of. We went straight to Mr. Bankart, and were informed of the position. “We found that Mr. Vaile apparently was the only one who had been near the museum while the work was going ahead. He saw and knew all that, was going on. He is a shrewd business man, and he must have kr •wn what was being done, and of the changes from the original arrangements. If his have not been errors of commission, they were certainly errors of omission.” Colonel Dawson again stressed his wish to put aside any squabble over the position as it stood today, and ! work for the fruition and possible i betterment of the memorial scheme.