THE GREY COLLECTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1921, Page 5

THE GREY COLLECTION.

EXCHANGE OF BOOKS, ETC.

An interesting amplification is given in the New Zealand Herald of a cable message from Cape Town, printed this week, reporting the introduction of legislation vesting the books and manuscripts known as the Grey collection in the trustees of the South African Public Library, and empowering them to transfer to the New Zealand Government such books and manuscripts in the collection as relate to the Maori race and to Polynesia, and receive in exchange from the New Zealand Government books and manuscripts formerly belonging to Sir George Grey relating to South Africa. It appears that the proposal for the exchange of books and manuscripts from the Grey collection in Cape Town and Auckland has been on foot for some time. An explanation of the negotiations up to the present time was given by the Hon. George Fowlds just recently. The New Zealand material, he stated, came into the possession of the Cape Town Library authorities in 1886, and negotiations between the New Zealand Government and the Cape Government, with a view to exchange, had been in progress since 1906, when Mr. Fowlds, while in South Africa, endeavored to enter into an arrangement. Mr. Fowlds said that Sir George Grey, in the preface to one of his books, expressed the hope that the South African and the Auckland collections might be exchanged, thus securing to the two countries those things of special interest to each. Continuing, Mr. Fowlds said that when he visited South Africa in 1906 he examined the collection of Maori manuscripts which forms part of the Grey collection held there. Archdeacon Williams, of Gisborne, about the same time also visited Cape Town and examined the collection, and as a result there was brought down in. the Union Parliament a Bill having for its object the sanctioning of the exchange. However, mainly due to the efforts of Baron de Villiers, who was opposed to the exchange, the Bill was thrown out. Mi. Fowlds said he had visited South Africa again in 1910 as the New Zealand Government’s representative at the opening of the Union Parliament, and while there made further representations regarding the collection, this time being stengthened by a strong recommendation from the Government in favor of the exchange. During the first session of the Cape Parliament in 1911, a promise was made that legislation would be brought down authorising the Cape Library trustees to make the exchange. So far as he knew this legislation had not been passed, but apparently a move in this direction was about to be made. Then the exchange would be merely a matter of negotiation between the Auckland City Council and the Cape Town Library trustees. Mr. Fowlds said there was no doubt of the Value to New Zealand of the manuscripts held in Capetown.