THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7968, 20 February 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1906.

The aotion of the Committee of the Masterton A. and P.' Association in declining to grant "permission" to the ladies who wished to canvass, on the Showgrounds, during the Show days, in aid of funds for the new Masterton Hospital has given rise to some discussion. No doubt the Jappiication was made to the Committee, who considered it, «s a matter of formal courtesy, and tbe» action was certainly a proper one * in the circumstances. What, however, the Committee should have

first considered, when dealing with the letter, was whether they had the necessary authority to either Kraut or refuse the application. We will assume that Jones duly pays for admission to ! * the Show* grounds, and that while there he meets Smith, and asks him to give a guinea towards the building fund of the new Hospital* Whut power has the A. and P, Association, even if it wished to exercise it, to prevent Smith from either donating, or being asked to donate the guinea? To our mind the discussion is very much of "the storm in the teapot" description, and we would suggest to the ladies, who wish to canvass for the new hospital fund on the I Showgrounds, that they do so. Certainly the A. and P. Association can offer no effective opposition to such a course. The decision of the Committee referred to was, no doubt, hurriedly arrived at, and too much importance if, indeed, any at all, must not bo attached to it. Art matters in Wellington are certainly not c-editable to the Empire Cty, which seems to be altogether too much engrossed in business to care about the development of art and the advantages arising f rotn it. Messrs Dalgety and Co., Wellington, recently reported that they held their hide and skin sale in the Art Gallery. Mr John Euskin wrote: "So much as there is in you of ox, or of swiue, perceives no beauty and creates none; what is human in you, in exact proportion to the perfeetness of its humanity, can create it and receive." Art, he eaye, is no .recreation it is not a mere . amusement, a minister to morbid sensibilities, a tickler and fanner of the soul's sleep." And this, not because Art is not to give pleasure; on the oontrary, it is not |Art unless it does but beoause the pleasures to which it Is the highest function of Art to appeal are the pleasures of the mind,, and not of the senses." What would such a teaoher have thought of the holding of hide and skin sales in an "art gallery?" Surely it is, almost, another case of the money obangera in the Temple? But, as a matter of fact Wellington does not possess an Art Gallery, and this fact is, perhaps, rather more regrettable than the holding of a hide and skin sale would be in a real art gallery: