New Zealand ArchivistVol III No 2 Winter/June 1992 ISSN 0114-7676

Interest Is Not EnoughJam es M cN eish

I am a writer. I generate paper. But my credentials in terms of the subject of this conference are almost nil. I knew nothing about literary papers until recently. What little I do know is the result of discovery by accident.

The state of playMy starting point is Oxford. A few years ago I was in

Oxford where I was told the papers of Dan Davin were destined not for a New Zealand library but for a British archive. When I checked later, I discovered that the information was false, but at the time I didn't know this. The thought of Dan's papers going to Exeter as I had been told, instead of to Hocken or Turnbull, seemed a bit peculiar. Then shortly after I returned to New Zea­land came a letter, an invitation out of the blue to deposit my own manuscripts in an American univer­sity at Boston, to become the nucleus, as the invitation read, of a James McNeish Collection.

I happened to be going to New York a few months after this, so I wrote and subsequently called at Boston University's library and met the Director of Special Collections there, Dr Howard Gotlieb - who had issued the invitation. A word about Dr Gotlieb. He is I suppose a recognisable figure at American academic research institutions, part scholar, part curator, part impresario. He began the library in 1963, brought in from Harvard especially to found a modem, 20th century, German archive, primarily but by no means entirely literary. His attitude to collecting? We would say aggressive. "I've been known to send authors empty boxes and say to them 'Don't use a wastepaper basket, use these and send them to me.'"

What interested me about Boston was not so much the number of individual collections - about 1,500, probably the biggest 20th century literary manuscript repository in existence - but the range, which I found fascinating. Not only manuscripts of figures like Shaw, DH Lawrence, HG Wells, Robert Frost, the Sitwells. The range extended to figures in journalism, politics, thea­tre, the entertainment world. From Alistair Cooke to Ella Fitzgerald, from Eugene O'Neil' to Martin Luther King, including a great deal of what might be called non-canonical material such as the notes madeby Alistair Cooke taken at the side of Robert Kennedy as he lay shot and dying. Fred Astaire's dancing shoes. Gotlieb ex­plained that Fred Astaire had made it a condition of deposit, that if Boston wanted his papers, the shoes had to come too.

While being shown around I noticed some manu­scripts of Janet Frame. Then I discovered that Boston also held material from Joy Cowley, Ngaio Marsh, and Sylvia Ashton-Wamer. It was not until I returned to New Zealand that .file possible significance of what I

had seen in Boston began to sink in. I discovered that what I had seen (in 1989) was more than a few manu­script papers - it was holograph manuscripts in various stages, drafts, worksheets, notes and notebooks, galley sheets, printed matter, scrapbooks, juvenalia. I put this exodus together with what I already knew about Katherine Mansefield material which had ended up in US libraries, and added it to what I subsequently learned from John Weir about other New Zealand material held at Austin, Texas.

The state of mindIt seemed very few people in New Zealand knew.

All this material had been slipping away out of the country quietly, often surreptitiously, for thirty years, largely unnoticed. How had it happened? At this point I wrote to about twenty leading writers and librarians in New Zealand and asked for their views and experi­ences. The replies were interesting. Unknown to me, twenty-five years earlier the poet Philip Larkin had carried out a similar mini-survey in England and the replies we both got were, I later discovered, substan­tially the same. In both cases a level of indifference was revealed to contemporary material. Indeed one answer I received from a New Zealand writer I canvassed verbally was identical to a reply Larkin received in England - "If almost any New Zealand library had approached me five years ago for my collection, which was unusually complete at the time, I would have said 'yes' without hesitation."

Very broadly, the replies I received covered two areas. Was the exodus to American libraries greater yet? The answer was a qualified yes. An academic who wrote to me, and a senior civil servant to whom I spoke both made the point that American institutions such as the Smithsonian were moving into the field of Pacific collecting, which meant the pressure on New Zealand artists generally to give up their material was increas­ing. Thus the risk of more material leaving the country was bound to increase. But the extent of loss nobody quite seemed to know,

How had the exodus happened? I don't wish to imply that American institutions are awash with New Zealand literary treasures. They are not. Still, enough valuable material was sitting in US archival institutions for the question to be asked. How was it our libraries had been scooped in this way?In the case of Boston University, the short answer was that "Boston asked

first". John Lehmann writing in a British newspaper on this question commented that 'British libraries were asleep until Texas woke them". He meant the Humani­ties Center at Austin Texas.

In the same way. New Zealand libraries were asleep until Boston woke them. Of course the situation here has changed since then - 1 am aware of this. Research libraries such as Turnbull and Hocken, despite budget restrictions, have today a much more positive policy towards contemporary material than in the past. But this is quite recent. In the 1960s and 1970s New Zealand libraries, with very few exceptions, were simply not interested in acquiring modem manuscripts, even if offered on donation.

Joy Cowley for example, whose first novel had just appeared in the States, was approached by Howard Gotlieb in 1968 for her papers, and she not knowing anythingaboutcollectionssoughtadvicefromher agent, who very sensibly suggested she keep her manuscripts closer to home.

"Naively," she writes, "I offered them to my nearest university which happened to be Massey and was told to try some larger establishment, for example Victoria. I wrote to the English Department at Victoria Univer­sity and was referred to the Alexander Turnbull Li­brary. At Turnbull I was told there were no facilities for storing manuscripts - a brief and unhelpful letter." The following year, 1969, Gotlieb tried again from Boston, and Joy Cowley sent him a bundle of manuscripts.

Joy Cowley's letter, quoted above, added a post­script. "A few years ago the Turnbull Librarian wrote asking for manuscripts. When I replied mine were in Boston I got back a somewhat grumpy letter touching on my lack of patriotic spirit. I wrote back pointing out that the Turnbull Library had turned down my offer some years before."

What struck me with some force was the tone which several of my correspondents adopted when they spoke of American universities. Phrases like 'thieves in the night' and 'of course they have so much money they can buy anything they like'. These same correspondents were, I hope, surprised to discover later that American institutions obtain most of their literary material as gifts. Howard Gotlieb got all his New Zealand material without paying a cer\t.

He wrote, in response to some questions from me: "Over the past decades I have witnessed the loss through physical carelessness, benign neglect, disinterest, of a great deal of contemporary literary material in a number of countries. Beginning in the 1960s we have frankly prevented further loss by filling a void in lack of archi­val care. Rather than 'thieves in the night' I would say 'surgeons on c a ll '... It is absurd to think this library or any American library can afford to buy anything it wants and that money flows into auction houses and dealers' hands from here willy nilly. The reason we have today such a large 20th century collection is be­cause we were unable to purchase these collections, instead we persuaded our authors and public figures to place their materials here gratis".

The mistake in peoples' minds has to do with en­dowment fluids. American institutions often have huge funds but these tend to be used to acquire historical collections or materials of dead, usually well dead, literary figures at auctions. They are seldom used for acquisition of contemporary manuscripts. It is also true

that American collecting institutions benefit from tax concessions. The law provides that gifts of valuable documents can be counted against income tax. There are similar concessions in other countries, for example Canada, but we in New Zealand do not have these advantages.

Archivists v AuthorsWhen my article appeared at the end of 19901 I

was taken to task by the head of one library for 'false accusations', for over-simplifying in terms too black and too white. Well, fine. I wrote a provocative article, wanting among other things to flush debate into the open. I felt things were overdue for an airing. But then this curator went on to boast of technical advances, of recent acquisitions, suggesting that nothing in the past had ever been wrong. I have to say there were very few reactions like this. The common response was: "What can we do about it?", demonstrating not just a level of support but more importantly a will to act.

Apathy and indifference are by no means confined to this country. In Germany, librarians could not be bothered to collect the papers of Heinrich Boll. Boll's papers, to give one example among many, went to Boston. In Britain, the record is worse.

But having said that, that is no reason for sweeping the sins of the past under the carpet. We have to accept there has been a problem of neglect, an unwillingness to solicit and acquire. Even more, we have to accept this has been a problem of attitude and not of money. One archivist who wrote to me at length, spoke of the Great New Zealand Meanness, and unless I misinterpret him he was writing about meanness of spirit, about attitude, a way of thinking and acting, or rather of not acting. I do not believe that money, inadequate funding for staff, is the whole problem in New Zealand. It is instructive to go into the back rooms of prestigious American re­search libraries and discover just how few staff they actually employ.

One librarian said to me recently that New Zealand writers were unsympathetic to the problems faced by libraries. This may be true. Writers talk to writers, librarians talk to, librarians. This is also part of the problem.

I do know why one expatriot writer writer who died recently felt strongly about librarians. Some of you may have read the section in Dan Davin's Closing Times, I think in the chapter about Louis MacNiece, where MacNiece comes upon a zealous archivist in the act of raiding his wastepaper basket MacNiece had a phobia about archivists and Davin is not kind to them either. He speaks of 'academic ants'. Dan is quite savage. You may wonder why. His papers it is agreed are coming back from Oxford to Turnbull, but the collection, that vast and valuable treasure-house spanning sixty years, was once offered to another New Zealand library and rejected. According to Winnie Davin, his widow, Dan wrote after the war to Dunedin and offered his papers to the Hocken Library. Gratis, naturally. He didn't even get a reply to his letter.

What is to be done?What is to be done in the future? It is not a question

of money, entirely or even fundamentally, but let's consider money for a moment.

I made the suggestion in my newspaper article that

a system of national funding was needed, a national heritage fund with an independent panel which would take heed of literary archives and among other things encourage institutions to look in the right direction, besides help providing a market value, a yardstick, for a writer's work. While there is support for this idea, there is also in the current climate a great deal of pessimism about any idea involving government or quasi-government funding - "now is not the moment".

But I would argue the opposite, and state that if funding is considered pre-eminent now is precisely the moment to begin lobbying. Even in a booming economy no system of national or block funding for anything as ratified as literary treasures is going to come about overnight, and if archivists, librarians, and interested groups such as the literature committee of the Arts Council and PEN care enough (as they say they do) then the sooner a joint working party to draft proposals is put together, the better. It took a long time to gain tax concessions in the USA, Canada, and Australia.

Having said this, there are other ways to go, other levers and strings to pull. I would actually put lobbying for tax relief at the top of the list. Elliot Henderson told me that the incen­tive of tax relief was one element which finally drove his mother, Sylvia Ashton-Wamer, to de­posit the bulk of her ma­terial at Boston. On the same subject, it is almost indecent to think that an Archive as wealthy as at Austin inTexas,ata time when it's bank account was almost bottomless with oil money, should have obtained the manuscripts of authors such as Tennessee W illiam s, Lilian Heilman, and Arthur M iller - for nothing.There you are. Tax re­lief.

It is sometimes use­ful to rule out what should not be done. There is a school, of thought which believes the way to stop material leaving New Zealand is to pass a law forbid­ding its export. Experience overseas suggests this is not the answer, that the more difficult you make it for papers to leave the country, with the aim of saving them for the nation, the more likely it is they will not be saved for anybody.

What does an author want? I do not think an author is very different from anybody else in the community, If he knows his papers have a value, he will be careful not to discard them. If he knows there is a prospect of recompense for himself or his heirs, he will be less likely to send the papers abroad.

There is a misconceived fear among curators that, if they make it known they are willing to pay for acquisi­

tions, writers will hold libraries 'to ransom'. Why, an author will even offer back at a price a letter the library has originally written to the author! Well, I suppose it is a risk. There are risks - there is always the midnight forger. But I think the risk small, and anyway worth taking.

"Very often", one archivist writes, "the reward from the donor's point of view is the interest shown and in the honour bestowed on them in perpetuity by their papers being housed iaa prestigious and secure institu­tion". I know what this correspondent means. But he goes on, "I am sure that no-one would wish to compro­mise this tradition by encouraging payment".

This attitude - 'why should we pay you money when we do you the honour of giving you house-room' - is not just wrong but counter-productive. For New Zealand writers, it is completely out of touch. Most do not want money at all, maybe they want something, but certainly not American prices. I do not think the average writer in this country regards his papers as his superannua­

tion or pension fund. In the case of my own pa­pers, what is important is that they are kept together as a collection, and not split up. That is more im­portant to me than finan­cial reward. Money is sec­ondary.

Setting money aside, what else can be done? Let me address a mythi­cal panel, an archivally- inspired working party let's say, charged in 1992 with remedying the situ­ation. Imagine a panel comprising a librarian, an educator, an administra­tor from the Arts Coun­cil, a PEN or writers' rep­resentative, someone from the business com­munity with financial ex­perience. The brief is to produce a five-year plan of action on an impossi­bly meagre budget. What would I say to them?

Involve PEN, the writ­ers' organisation. It not only has a vested interest, but is quite big and has clout. Second, take a clue from Ger­many and involve a political party. I have already mentioned the Boll papers. Heinrich Boll originally sent his papers to Boston because no German library was interested. These papers have now been returned to Germany where they are housed in a special building in Hamburg - a projectand initiative funded by theGreens. So a Nobel-prizewinning writer's literary estate has been saved for the nation by the intervention of a political party.

Involve the business community. Some of you may be aware of the initiative of Anita Segerberg in Auck­land, towards a Centre for the Study of New Zealand Literature, now supported by PEN. This is to include the conservation and collection of manuscripts in a

centre funded by business.An interesting proposal comes from a South Island

university librarian, that university (or other) libraries could with more imagination offer something to writ­ers and thereby "earn the right to ask for literary papers as gifts". He talks of throwing open library facilities, of providing photocopying and other services, a study room, of treating the writer as a member of academic staff, of providing a sort of honorary fellowship.

Archival institutions have to adopt a higher profile. Once a library has a reputation for being interested in acquiring certain material, it no longer needs to solicit. This has already happened with the otherwise little- known Penn State University - which has begun to be ottered material for its Pacific Collection. You need to publicise what you have got, publicly, not just among yourselves, and let it be known you are interested in acquiring material.

I use the word 'acquire' deliberately. I have used the word 'solicit' rather than 'collect'. There is also the 'begging letter', by which I mean scouting for material. Let's be dear about this. Collecting, the whole business of acquiring modem literary papers is I suspect a mys­tery to most librarians in this country. Somehow in the context of adopting a higher profile yourselves, you have to get it across that scouting for material, the much-maligned 'begging letter', is not something to be ashamed of. Think of yourselves as surgeons on call - Gotlieb's phrase.

We have all heard horror stories, ask any dealer or auctioneer, of valuable material being sent to the dump, to the tip, to the indnerator, because some archivist or librarian was too sleepy, too polite, too busy, too una­ware, too apathetic, too brash, too coy, too arrogant, too modest, to write a begging letter. Contrary to popular belief the so-called begging letter is not packed with honeyed phrases at all. It is a warm businesslike invita­tion to an author, It is tailored to a particular author, and it is a request to donate.

I have to thank Witi Ihimaera for reminding me how much better the Australians are at this sort of thing than we are. He writes of the by now established Australian tradition of soliciting, purchasing, and holding papers. "John Thompson of die Australian National Library regularly attends Australian literary festivals to talk to up-and-coming authors". Of the maligned and misun­derstood begging letter, he adds with commendable understatement "we in New Zealand are not good at this".

Interest is not enoughIn the collecting game, interest alone is not enough.

I cannot stress too much, how important it is in New Zealand to adopt a higher-profile approach, down to and including the humblest branch and community library in the country. It was Philip Larkin (himself a university librarian) who said that "it is a poor author who is not worth a thesis at some time or other", and if this fact alone were more widely known in the library community we would all have a more fertile basis to build on.

Think of the quantity of paper generated by New Zealand authors in the last ten years. How many writers - ten? fifty? a hundred? How many of these are minor? Probably 80%. But how do you know that someone considered minor or unimportant today is not, in fifty

years' time, going to be seen in an entirely different light? We don't know. Think of the field of biography. In New Zealand biography has been a neglected field, and is only now beginning to take off. It will become a much more important branch of our literature. Every biographer knows that it is the work of a minor writer which can often illuminate the pages of a major figure.

Returning to my mythical panel, I say to it: don't adopt a single approach, adopt several at once. Involve everybody, especially the small regional and commu­nity libraries. Encourage them to collect the papers of local writers. So the local writer may seem uninterest­ing? But you could be wrong. Anyway, I don't see this as a reason for not acquiring papers, any more than not knowing if you've got a winning poker hand is any reason for not making a bid.

Everybody is worried about budgets. An exercise-in -awareness campaign such as I am suggesting is some­thing that can be done without breaking anybody's bank. In any case the burden of collecting has now become far greater than one or two institutions can handle. Literary papers, to misquote Fairbum, are like manure - they should be spread around.

To recapitulate: I am for a programme of education; for a variety of holding institutions; and for a more businesslike approach to writers.

Most New Zealand writers, unless they are abso­lutely strapped for cash and are made an offer they cannot refuse (which is highly unlikely) are not going to sell anything abroad. They want their papers to stay close to home, near institutions associated with their lives or careers, where they can be readily consulted and topped up, added to by friends and family after they are dead. Janet Frame not unnaturally prefers her papers to end up in Dunedin, overlooking the Leith not the Charles River in Boston, Witi Ihimaera's preference is Gisborne, Fleur Adcock's Wellington.

The problem now for archivists and curators is less with the established writers than with the rest. What else is worth collecting? Who else? This brings up the whole question of literary evaluation which is a subject for a separate seminar.

"I get depressed thinking about the position of New Zealand research libraries," an archivist in Auckland writes, "viz a viz our American counterparts when it comes to funding". He feared New Zealand libraries were "impotent" and that "we cannot compete". I hope some of the points I have made may help to reduce such pessimism. It is less a question of money, than of atti­tude. Were I an archivist I should be depressed if there were no writers. The 'problem' here in New Zealand is there are too many writers! But that seems a good rather than a bad problem.

I quote this letter (and I don't think Peter Hughes will mind if I name him) is that it asks a valuable question. I had written a year ago about the importance not just of saving papers but of caring for them, on the premise that writers wanted above all their material to be secure, and accessible. Secure is easy. Available?

Peter Hughes writes, "is a collection 'available' if you present a researcher with a box of unsorted manu­scripts and correspondence?" In other words, define 'available'. Twelve months I would have answered, "No, if it is not sorted it is not in my view accessible or available, it is not what I call being cared for. Thank you very much, if that is your approach, you can't have my

papers." I have since shifted my ground. Today, know­ing a little more about the problems archivists face, I would not be so categorical.

What about the researcher? How does a researcher feel about a box of unsorted material? Some biographi­cal researchers, like Holroyd, regard the digging among raw unsorted material as an adventure. Some even prefer it, not wanting to be mollycoddled with a folder- by-folder inventory, with cross references to date and related correspondents by surname. They actually pre­fer to discover some of this for themselves. Books grow in writers minds from a feeling of excitement. And often, you can feel it in the writing, the quality of the result, what is finally published is related to that initial adventure or discovery among unsorted or discarded papers in a bulging suitcase or cluttered archive.

A final plea to my mythical panel. I urge it to consider a register of locations. We may not have made much progress in funding for the collection of literary material, but there is a great deal of progress that can be made in the recording of information about collections. The National Register of Archives & Manuscripts doesn't quite cover what is needed. I mean a record of the whereabouts of New Zealand literary material both domestic and expatriated, which covers material both in public and in private hands, including interview and oral material. I made an interesting discovery recently: three roughly contemporary writers, each of whose papers built up over the last twenty years bears on the social content of the Thirties with particular reference to

the Mason-Fairbum-Cumow-Glover-Baxter literary school. The papers of the first are saved; those of the second largely destroyed; those of the third are being solicited by an overseas archive.

What is still in private hands in this country, and still at risk? I don't think anyone knows. It would be worth finding out and cataloguing, just as it would be worth cataloguing what has been lost to American libraries (less than we suspect, I think). A register of this kind would not be difficult to draw up. In England, follow­ing an initial suggestion by Michael Holroyd and Paul Levy of the Strachey Trust ten years ago, a pilot project was commissioned and is now up and running at Reading University. There have been some surprising and heartening results.

One of the by-products of a location register of this kind in New Zealand will be increased interest and awareness from libraries. In England the original spon­sor has now been joined by several business firms. Who would have thought you could tap a businessman to help compile a literary register? My guess is that a pilot project could be initiated quite easily, by a couple of senior students at PhD level, under the aegis of any university English Department.

1 Paper Exodus Sends O ur Literary H eritage A broad, Domin­ion Sunday Tim es 12 A ugust 1990. 'A uthor Jam es M cNeish reveals the background and consequences of one of N ew Zealand's invisible exports - the loss to overseas universities of papers and research m aterial o f our best-known authors.'

Ideals and RealitiesJ E Traue

I have been given an elastic title, generous enough to fit a w ide ranging consideration of this conference's them e, the acquisition, preservation and use of the papers of public figures. I propose to stretch the title to its limits and to m ake this an occasion for a hom ily, a serm on, on som e of our current ills, and an exhortation to the nation to m end its wicked w ays.

The text I have chosen for my sermon this morning is taken from the words of St John Beaglehole, who declared just thirty years ago that the enemies of the written records of our New Zealand past are "rats, fire and female relations"1. Not, note you, the acquisitive instincts of off-shore imperial authorities or of Ameri­can universities. The truth of the matter is that for every page of our primary documentation sold to an overseas buyer or given to an overseas institution, we destroy, or by our neglect allow to be destroyed, right here in New Zealand, smother ten thousand pages. The volume of writers' papers deposited outside New Zealand in the United States or Britain or elsewhere is still only a tiny fraction of what is preserved in our libraries or still in the hands of the writers or their relations.

The enemy is not the other out there, but lies within us. We, and we alone, are responsible - or in the jargon of the new age, we the people of New Zealand are

accountable. We are, like most new societies, basically ahistorical in our attitudes: we live very much in the present with our eyes fixed on our glorious destiny in the future. The people of some other new societies, the Americans and the Australians, have begun to think historically: we have still a long way to go before we can begin to think like the Europeans (or the Maori) with that sense of a thousand years or more of history behind (or in front) of them. It was a revelation to me when I first visited continental Europe in 1980. There, as I talked to my equals in the research library community, they would drop into our conversations quite casually and without self-consciousness references to events over a thousand years ago. Among them, and in the population at large it seemed to me, there was an automatic and unquestioned acceptance of the need to collect and preserve the records of the past in the public interest.

All of you who are in the day-to-day business of acquiring archives and manuscripts for institutions in New Zealand know the sad, heartbreaking stories off by heart. "What a pity you left it until today. We sent them to the tip last week", or yesterday; or "we burnt them under the copper last weekend"; or they were so badly damaged by water, or mould, or rats and mice, that we threw them out. "Anyway, they weren't that important, surely? Just old papers, and they weren't that old anyway; there weren't any books, you know, just letters and things." Or even worse, the invitation to inspect Dad's or Grandad's or Grandma's surviving papers only to find that the most important, for the historian, have long since gone and the residue consists of public certificates and suchlike; the photos (newspa­per posed or studio) o f our hero or heroine with the Queen, Winston Churchill, a football or basketball team or a racehorse, or whatever; awards of honorary mem­berships of the London Worshipful Company of Butch­ers or Bakers or Candlestick Makers; the citation for the MBE or honorary degree. Landmarks for him or her, but all part of the existing public record; the confidences, the personal letters, the judgements on his or her con­temporaries, the unique personal knowledge of this man or woman have gone for good and we will never recover them and make them part of our public past.

Or you will have encountered the suspicion of the relatives that the records left by our hero or heroine will be used to attack or belittle his or her reputation; and the belief that a future biographer will repeat verbatim every loose phrase or inappropriate word to denounce and discredit. The urge to censor, or better to destroy lest a blemish be uncovered, is still very strong in these tiny islands, where everyone knows everyone else, and most of us seem to be related in one way or another. In older or larger countries they ha ve a much more relaxed grip on family papers. W e are still rather shy, insecure people, troubled by doubts about our worthiness in the public arena. These are the enemies within: our atti­tudes to the past and to the written records of thatpast.

We have in recent years shown some signs of im­provement. I could detect, in my seventeen years at the Turnbull, an evolving sense of history and a growing sense of the importance of private papers in establish­ing public identities. There seemed to me to be a great deal more trust of public institutions for private papers, and a growing trust in government departments in the National Archives. I can recall in my early days many a conversation with very loyal and sincere public serv­ants who could not bear to see their department's precious records passing into the unsteady hands of the National Archives, despite the very clear provisions of the Archives Act.

It seemed to me, from my personal observations, that the most potent influence in changing public atti­tudes towards the deposit of private papers in public institutions was example. We were in the position at Turnbull to quote precedents, to quote the examples of private papers deposited and used by scholars, without harmful effects and, in fact, were able to quote the positive benefits and to cite the published biographies and histones. We were able to quote, and produce, carefully worded deposit agreements which safe­guarded the private interest without unduly restricting thepublic interest. And we could cite a record of careful stewardship by the institution and principled use by

researchers.Because example was so potent in our negotiations

we made it our business to publicise as widely as possible the deposit of private papers in the Turnbull, not just in out acquisition lists published in the Turnbull Library Record and seen by members of the Friends, or in Archifacts and seen by the interested professionals, but in news releases to newspapers, radio and television. The carefully crafted messages we were transmitting emphasised the normality of such deposits, the deposit as a good thing in itself, and its potential for a further addition to public knowledge. Whenever a researcher made substantial use of a collection of private papers for a publication we made it known to as wide an audience as possible that these papers were not dead things but capable of new life in the right hands. They were not, as many people seemed to believe, 'hidden away7 or 'buried' in a library, but active, working away in a library.

Mind you, we had to keep strictly to our side of the agreement with our donors. The use of private papers had to be carefully controlled, and responsible. On ,ore than one occasion I had to read what I used to call 'the riot act7 to researchers, to make it clear that in granting free access to private papers we were placing our repu­tation in the hands of the researcher, and not only our reputation but that of other similar repositories. I stressed the acute sensitivity of donors of private papers in New Zealand and our need to maintain public confidence. I made it abundantly clear that if they should abuse the trust placed in them retribution would be sure and vindictive and would reach down to their sons and their son's sons, unto the tenth generation. If I had any doubts about a researcher's trustworthiness my parting shot was to declare that if he or she transgressed, we would personally make sure that he or she became non persona grata in as many research libraries as we could reach, and that the Tumbull had a very long arm. It was so much easier putting the fear of God into the profes­sional researcher than having to read every word of a thesis or a book.

I use the T umbull experience because it is something I know personally. I am sure that many of you have similar experiences from other institutions that you could retail to us to our profit. The point that I am making, and I offer no apology for labouring so long at it, is that although we start with a disadvantage com­pared with older, maturer, and larger, countries, we as a profession have made, and can make a real difference. New Zealand is a small country, is very young, is lacking in maturity in its attitude towards the public use of private papers, but it is changing. Time is one of the elements, and.I suppose that it is on our side, but my experience suggests that the most important factor is our profession (and that means both archivists and those in research libraries) and our application to the task of changing public attitudes.

I have just indicated that I supposed that time was on our side, suggesting that long-term trends are fa­vourable to the development of a more mature attitude towards the preservation and use of the papers of public figures, and of the papers, such as they are, of ordinary people. But there are several short-term, or what I fervently pray are short-term trends which are causing me more and more concern. As promised in my opening remarks I am turning now to current ills and

wicked ways which need to be mended.First, I think that our standards of security and our

monitoring of the use of materials in our libraries and archives are slipping; or if they are still the same, then we are not increasing our surveillance levels suffi­ciently to meet the increased threats. Large thefts from our public institutions are not likely to lead to an increase in the public's confidence; and the answer is definitely not to cover up and suppress the evidence for fear of deterring potential depositors or losing our credibility in the eyes of our funding authorities. We have to face fairly and squarely the fact that the theft of valuable public and private documents from libraries and archives, apparently endemic in the United States, could well be part of our future unless we take very determined steps to deter potential thieves. Most of the deterrence will have to come from in-house measures: our experience at the Turnbull was that the law enforce­ment authorities were weak reeds when it came to the theft of our kind of public property.

As well, I suspect that under the avalanche of users we are facing these days, many of them new users with no stake in the process of scholarly communication and no long-term obligations to us, we have lowered our surveillance and die proper training of users. We are becoming more and more vulnerable to the unscrupu­lous user with an eye to the main chance, whether it be financial or ideological. As many of you will be aware the trends overseas are to reward those who in writing biography can uncover the biggest and deepest sleaze pit. The level of competition for readers, the need for large publishers for a regular quota of best sellers, are placing pressures on authors which many are finding it hard to resist As well, university academics in this country are facing greatly increased pressures to pub­lish research, and temptations to adopt short cuts will increase. Libraries and archives are next in line and unless we are very careful some users will betray our trust and use restricted material irresponsibly and do considerable damage to some institution's reputation, and possibly sour the whole delicate reputation we have been establishing between private donors and public institutions.

The financial rewards in New Zealand are not great ’for such activities, fortunately, but the political and ideological rewards for the unscrupulous and the amoral seem to be much higher. As the relativism currently fashionable in academic circles in the United States takes stronger hold here, and the ideologically commit­ted reject notions of obligations to the common good, or national interest, and nail their flags defiantly to the masts of class, gender, race, or even narrower interests; as we regress from commonwealth to state of nature; the chances of unscrupulous uses of private papers will increase.

We are not running open access lending libraries of secondary literature openly published for use in the public domain, but are the guardians of private docu­ments intended substantially for the private or semi­private domain, and we need to appreciate that our­selves first of all, and then to make our masters aware of the difference and the consequences of failure to treat such primary materials appropriately. Their care is more expensive, it requires a higher intensity of staff involvement, they are sensitive, the usage rates are low: these are the facts and they must be made known to our

masters. You can be damn sure that if something goes wrong they won't be accepting the blame but dropping us into it, post haste.

I have this feeling in my bones that a major scandal is in the making somewhere in the next few years unless we get a much firmer grip on some of our users. Frankly, some of them aren't to be trusted very far with primary materials. Many would not respond to what I called the 'riot act7 treatment I used to dish out at Turnbull be­cause they lack a long-term investment in the process of scholarly research and communication. They are not, in the jargon, our stakeholders; their stakeholding is some­where else.

Second, the new received wisdom in government, the 'more market7 approach to public administration, the application of ideas drawn from a long-dead econo­mist's model of competitive private enterprise, is shift­ing emphases from the long term to the short. Returns, or outcomes, are being required to be more clearly related to investments, to inputs, and the easiest under­stood and easiest measured relationships are temporal - if business can operate for a profit on an annual basis, a one-year turnaround from investment of resources to a palpable outcome on the right side of a balance sheet, why can't public institutions? In such a climate, and it is becoming more pervasive as its promised benefits recede even further into the future, we are under pres­sure to grasp the expedient, to drive for the short-term and the easily computable - bums on seats, documents delivered to clients, collections processed per dollar invested. The package of beliefs associated with this ideology is not just ahistorical, it is profoundly anti­historical: the model is not that of people embedded in a past, influenced by history, beholden to a community existing over time, with loyalties, obligations and be­liefs, but of the autonomous individual acting freely, without anything except economic constraints, striving to maximise short-term gratification. What price (not value) can be placed on the records of the past: what practical, tangible, measurable goods (not good) have we to show for these collecting and preserving activities of ours?

This shortening of perspectives and stress on the rational, selfish, utility-maximiser is corrosive of the values needed to sustain our activities. It is corrupting both our masters and our clients and we shall need to apply strong professional prophylactics to shield our­selves from becoming infected.

Third is the lessening of our society's committment to print and the documents of the written word and the increasing value placed on the oral and the ephemeral. The tadt agreement of all dvilised people stood not on the actual shoulders of the preceding but on the piles of written and printed documents inherited from the pre­vious generations to enable it to see further than its predecessors, this agreement seems to me to be weak­ening. It is one consequence of our essentially modem ahistoridsm - the belief, that because of the stupendous growth of information in the recent past compared with the earlier past, that anything of any consequence was created within one's own lifetime and that the distant past has little or nothing to offer. I don't propose to say anything more on this subject, a major one in its own right and well worthy of a book or two, but to refer you to a readily available antidote available at all good booksellers, my recently published book Committed to

Print: Selected Essays in Praise o f the Common Culture o f the Book. At $24.95 it is better value than what you will get at most chemists' shops these days.

My judgement is that, short-term, and right now, there is a danger that the hard won gains of the past 20­30 years could be severely undermined, even lost. Short­term trends are against us, and the only recipe I can offer is to increase our professional committment, work

harder, and employ a great deal more native cunning to maintain our position.

Here endeth the lesson. Let us now pray for those who know what what they do, and plot to undo those who know and don't care.

1 J C Beaglehole, 'On the Duties o f a Librarian', New Zealand Libraries, 25 (Jan-Feb 1962), 1-6.

Recollections of a Voyeur arranging the papers of

Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1908-1984)Frank Rogers

Since m y retirem ent from secondary teaching I have found a second career in archives as a publisher and by w orking as an arranger of private papers, principally for the U niversity of A uckland Library, w ithout pay. The public figures w hose papers I arranged for the Library w ere Sir G eorge Fow lds, a M inister in the W ard cabinet, A R D Fairbum the poet and publicist, and G eorge C ow ie Reid Professor of English at Auckland U niversity. A lso I received com m issions, the first of w hich w as from the A uckland City A rt G allery to arrange the papers of John W eeks the painter. This led to a recom m endation to the H enderson estate law yer w ho w as handling Sylvia A sh ton -W am er's effects. In each case I som etim es felt I w as invading the privacy of the subjects, som ew h at like a voyeur but w ithout the sex - as if I w ere peering through a keyhole observing their private lives, even in the case of Fow lds, w hose papers w ere m ainly concerned w ith his public life, but there w ere letters to and from his fam ily and relatives, w hich ran thegam ut of the em otions.

Examples (from the Weeks Papers, except the last):From a woman friend: "I thought you would be sure

to come on Wednesday for dinner n o ... no-one ...Another woman friend: "paua shell bedknobs to

you with Marcasite fittings."From Louise Henderson (no relation) on the death of

her husband Hubert: "Thank you for your kind letter, but I ha ve nothing to say and my life is over, the days are long the house is empty and I am lonely."

On shipboard to London: "I feel that queer and disconcerting life inside my body which comes when I am eager to work, much like a love pang, at the thought that only two days separate me from what I am going to see and do."

Written on an used envelope: "I will paint the great­est thing that has ever been painted bar nothing - it will be absolutely original & distinctive & full of fine colour & design. To hell with everybody who has ever painted before."

Sylvia on her return to NZ from British Columbia in 1973:" I left New Zealand a broken-hearted widow and I returned a Professor of Education."

The Sylyia job was different from the rest. In the other cases the papers had been in the hands of the recipient institution for some time. In this case, shortly after her death Sylvia's papers had been freighted from her home in Tauranga to the Auckland office of the solicitors of the Henderson estate. The papers were in

limbo. Their fate was yet to be decided. That situation remained until 1991.1 was even told that the family had to stop the Turnbull Library from sending an officer to uplift them. Sylvia had been negotiating with Jim Traue regarding giving the papers (or what was left of them) to Turnbull but there appeared to be no formal agree­ment to that effect, so far as I am aware.

The solicitor handling the estate commissioned me to do the arrangement and description of the papers. As well, he asked me to prepare a report on their impor­tance and possible future destination, so that he could advise the three beneficiaries. I think it quite the excep­tion for a solicitor to take this kind of action. I suppose that the work on which I had embarked could be regarded as a classic example of what ought to be done with the private papers of public figures but never is.

The papers can be described briefly: volume 2m, inclusive dates 1939-84, major content 1978-84.

Correspondence with family and friends, publish­ers in NZ, USA, UK, associates at Simon Fraser Univer­sity BC, fan mail.

Professional and business domestic affairs.Literary manuscripts of published and unpublished

writings.Teaching and lecture materials including examples

of the reading books she made up for children's indi­vidual reading.

Printed matter and clippings.

Notebooks and diaries including five five-year dia­ries 1966-84.

Photographs.The work was completed in a little over a month,

and I was paid about $2500 including allowances for travel and parking. It was in parts quite tedious when it involved removal of pins and iron staples, and the extraction of most of the letters from their envelopes and then flattening them. I don't propose to say any more about the working details.

I prepared an inventory, illustrated with some of the artwork from the children's books, and also a report on the possibilities of the final destination of the papers. I pointed out that the papers were incomplete and were complementary to the holdings of Boston University's Mugar Library, whose Curator of Collections, Dr Gotlieb, had sent me a copy of their listing of the series of gifts Sylvia had made up to 1978. It is not an inventory. It is ironic that Mugar, the overseas library, did not pay for these papers, while Turnbull, in Sylvia's own country has paid for those they finally obtained.

These factors had to be borne in mind:1. Sylvia was a literary figure with a reputation in

three fields - a novelist of international stature; a femi­nist cult figure; an innovative teacher in the field of reading. Hence the papers were of more than usual importance and required an appropriate final location.

2. Sylvia had commenced negotiations with the Alexander Turnbull Library regarding the gift of the papers still in her possession, which constituted an indication of her wishes about their future.

3. A rather larger part of her papers had already been given to Boston University.

My advice ran something like this. The possible alternatives appear to be:

1. Retention by her three children for their exami­nation and enjoyment - but this would mean that they would need storage with proper security. As well there would be problems with providing proper facilities for researchers. Sylvia's daughter Jasmine (Mrs Beveridge) and her husband had a large family to look after. The Henderson home (Whenua) at Otumoetai in Tauranga had been sold. The two sons Ashton and Elliot did not work in New Zealand. Therefore this solution as with most families was not a viable alternative. They had opted out by sending the papers to the solicitor, and later to the Hocken Library - of which more anon.

2. Gift or sale to Boston University - perhaps the archivally sound solution which would reunite the papers, since the two parts overlap in dates but not in content.

3. Gift or sale to a New Zealand repository would conform to Sylvia's apparent wishes before she died, and to Elliot's wishes also, as well as to the desire on the part of many New Zealanders that the literary papers of New Zealand writers should stay in New Zealand, and not become PhD 'Fidd' fodder for foreigners. I said that if the papers were to stay in New Zealand the obvious place for them was the Turnbull Library, since it holds the largest collection of New Zealand literary papers and is empowered by statute to build a national collec­tion. Sylvia would then be represented in the Pantheon of NZ literature.

4. Sale on the open m arketIn the few interviews I had with Elliot Henderson he

made quite clear what he repeated later in a public

speech at the opening of the Sylvia Ashton-Wamer Library at the Auckland College of Education; that he had long since realised that he had no ordinary mother and it was no good trying to be possessive about her. He wanted to have her papers in a public institution in New Zealand so that her image would be preserved. It is not clear to me why it took so long before they got to Turnbull, since Lynley Hood's biography was pub­lished in 1988.1 have an idea that Jasmine was not keen to have the family's private life as represented in the papers made open to the public, but Lynley Hood's biography had already told all, if not more than all; she is more of a voyeur than I am!

Another feature that may have caused delay was Elliot's concern to see if the Mugar collection could be repatriated. I understand that he had been pressing Dr Gotlieb to hand over the papers. This may have been owing to a misunderstanding. Holding institutions obviously do not make a practice of handing back to relatives such gifts to which they have legal title. Other­wise. especially with the rise in prices for manuscript papers and the growth of reputations, the situation would be disastrous. I think that Elliot quoted the return of Gunter Grass's papers to Germany by the Mugar Library. If I remember correctly Dr Gotlieb's explanation was that the Grass papers were only on deposit at Mugar.

At one stage I wrote to Elliot to say that the person to negotiate with was Gotlieb. It was no good going over his head and writing to the governing body of Boston University who would only refer the matter to the Curator - Gotlieb. If Gotlieb had no alternative but to stand firm against repatriation, I suggested that the alternative was to exchange copies. In that connection I had recently established there was no overlap of con­tent between the Mugar collection and the papers in New Zealand. I pointed out that a resolution of the impasse would not occur until the papers In New Zealand were given or sold to an institution, since only then could the exchange of copies, microfilm or what­ever, take place, for the benefit of scholars in both countries.

The subsequent development has been that last year the beneficiaries sold their portion of the papers to the Turnbull Library for a considerable sum.

I suppose that ideally the following procedures should be followed:

1. Establish what were the wishes of the creator in respect of the papers, which should be paramount (or should they?).

2. Establish the wishes of the family / beneficiaries.3. Prepare a preliminary inventory of the papers to

determine the content.4. Evaluate the collection as to the importance of its

contents in relation to the life of the creator.5. Obtain a valuation of the papers.In the matter of valuation, before completing the

report I consulted Peter Webb of Peter Webb Galleries in Auckland, a specialist in art and manuscripts, about the possibilities of his making an assessment of the market value of the papers. I believe that the archivist should acquaint the beneficiaries of the valuation of private papers of public figures. They are, after all, pieces of property, even if not just a piece of property like a yacht or real estate. He told me that American universities were paying large sums for literary papers

and instanced the oil-rich University of Texas which had been known to pay $50,000 or some such sum for the papers of a well-known writer.

In the event he was asked by the solicitor to examine the papers but did not get so far as putting a price on them although he said that the fact that they were only a part of her total papers was a disadvantage. The solicitor told me that Inland Revenue was interested in the value of the estate for death duties and that they insisted on Jim Traue being asked to value the papers. My recollection is that his valuation was $5,000.1 was not sure whether Jim was thinking of what Turnbull might have to pay rather than being kind to the benefi­ciaries in helping them to avoid taxation. He might say "I saved you $10,000 in death duties so you really got $15,000."

The other matter that arose out of the papers was my involvement with Sylvia's biographer. Before Sylvia died she had accepted Lynley Hood of Dunedin as her biographer, but the shift of the papers to Auckland on Sylvia's death had interrupted Lynley's work. I learned later that it was arranged that the papers went to the Hocken Library temporarily, so that she could continue her research. Apparently the facilities offered at Hocken were far in advance of the somewhat primitive arrange­ments for researchers at the Mugar Library.

Before I had completed my work, I met Lynley Hood at the Stout Centre Biography Conference in Welling­ton in July 1984, and we exchanged information about Sylvia on a friendly basis. However on 28 September of that year she wrote accusing me of proposing that the papers should be divided up and sold on the interna­tional market, claiming that Sylvia's reputation de­pended on her papers staying undivided. My only explanation for this allegation is that I must have told Lynley of the remarks of Peter Webb regarding the sums that the University of Texas had been known to pay for literary papers and that private papers were sometimes sold off in batches in order to raise more money.

Foolishly I wrote back indignantly pointing out that no such action was recommended by me, and that her claim was "a load of crap", since Sylvia's reputation was already established in her published writings and that the fate of her private papers was irrelevant to her international standing. Theestate solicitor reproved me for my intemperate language, but wrote to her on two occasions to confirm that my behaviour in this assign­ment was impartial and beyond reproach.

There was no immediate response from Lynley to any of these letters. However I was surprised to find that in James McNeish's article in the Evening Post (12 August 1990) on the exodus of literary papers, he re­ferred to Lynley Hood's new book about her experi­ences in writing the Ashton-Wamer biography, a book entitled Who Is Sylvia. He quoted what was obviously my rude letter to her. She dtes me as an example of the villains who would divide up and sell New Zealand's national literary treasures for filthy profit. Apparently my letter and the lawyers refuting this claim in 1984 had made no injpression. In the book I appear disguised as Teggy Cuthbert' but there can be no doubt as to whom she is referring, since I was the only person authorised to work on the papers at that time.

The solicitor and I had made it clear that my commis­sion was to arrange and describe the papers and to

report on them to the instructing solicitor. I was not one of the decision-makers, nor was I appointed to promote my personal views on the destiny of the papers. As to the claim 'Teggy has had Sylvia's papers valued" (p84), the truth is that I did no more than recommend that the papers should be valued. At no time did I propose that the papers "should be auctioned off". All this makes me doubt the accuracy of Lynley's methods of work.

I was upset by this misguided attack. My solicitor told me that her publication of my letter was a breach of copyright and her claims in this respect were defama­tory, although that would be difficult to prove. In the same work there are other examples of Lynley Hood's publication of letters from other people, as well as of taped conversations, apparently without permission. The interviews that she records were granted to her for a specific purpose - to gather data for the biography - not for publishing a diary about her search for Sylvia. This disregard for the conventions is notable in the case of Marie Clay, who declined to be interviewed or taped, but Lynley's telephone conversation with her is pub­lished anyway (pp24-25), and of Clarence Beeby who agreed to be interviewed but, I presume, not for the publication of his hilarious reaction to certain remarks. Michael King had given her advice about possible publishers, but without any expectation that his off-the- cuff remarks about them would be published.

In his review of Who Is Sylvia in Metro, King makes the point that "Oddly, Hood quotes with apparent approval Voltaire's maxim about owing truth to the dead and respect to the living. She doesn't observe it."

I made a point of defending my reputation to the various people that Hood had written to about my alleged duplicity, including Carl Stead, Jack Shallcrass, and Michael King. I also noted the anomaly that Hood wrote that she had attended an oral history seminar by Judith Fyfe, at which the doyens of oral history empha­sised the code of ethics in this matter, about protecting the confidentiality and rights of the sources.

I was not in a position to take Lynley Hood and/or the publishers to court, even if I had wanted to. How­ever I think that what appears to me to be irresponsible behaviour unworthy of a recipient of State funds should not pass unnoticed. We might consider this case as an example of the misuse and misapplication of informa­tion gathered without the necessary safeguards, and of the publication without authorisation of material that is copyright, in order to warn writers of what the law and ethics in such matters are. Do other researchers realise that anything written, created since 1900 might be subject to the law of copyright, depending upon the dates of creation and of the death of the creator. For example a letter written in 1905, by a person who died in 1965, is copyright until 1995, thirty years after death.

One problem I struck in arranging the papers was to decide which was the original manuscript, where there were several versions or copies. Sylvia had obviously learned the lesson of the burning of her manuscript by Dr Beeby personally! (Do you know the story?)

Other questions that could profitably be discussed arising out of this case study include:

Should the papers have gone to the Mugar Library? If so, as a gift or by sale?

How would you have responded to Lynley Hood's initial claim, and to her later unauthorised publication of private letters and conversations?

Rescuing A Life: sources for the biography of

Edward Tregear, 1846-1931

K R Howe

It is fashionable for historians to bem oan the fact that 'ordinary' people and especially w om en are left out of our history. But so too are prom inent males. Edw ard Tregear w as b om in Southam pton in 1846. H e cam e to N ew Zealand in 1863. By the turn of the century, Tregear w as one of N ew Zealand's m ost notable citizens and intellectuals. H e was an international authority in M aori and Polynesian studies. H e was also the controversial 'socialist' w ho, as Secretary for Labour during the tw enty years of Liberal rule, was responsible for planning and adm inistering the w orld's m ost ' advanced' labour laws. Tregear w as a household nam e in N ew Zealand particularly through his very high-profile adm inistration of factories, offices and shops reform s, and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration A ct, all of which affected the lives of every N ew Zealander. H e w as also probably one of the m ost articulate theoreticians and publicists ever in N ew Zealand in favour of a socially active role for the state. O verseas, Tregear, together w ith Seddon and Reeves, w ere perhaps the best known N ew Zealanders at the time. Social reform ers cam e from all over the w orld to be show n around by Tregear. As well, he w as a social critic, novelist and poet.1

It says something about the nation's collective his­torical consciousness that in spite of this prominence, Tregear has become a forgotten figure in New Zealand history.

Having decided in 1984 to write his biography I naively thought that it would be relatively easy to find material on such a public figure. Certainly I could get fairly ready access to Tregear7s own voluminous publi­cations, particularly his Polynesian studies. But then followed a period of some despair.

For a start, there was scarcely any secondary mate­rial on Tregear. Major secondary sources on New Zea­land history ignore or make the briefest of passing references to him. Two unpublished masters theses had examined some aspacts of his work - Peter Gibbons analysed Tregear7s handling of unemployment as Sec­retary of Labour, and Michael Belerave looked in part at Tregear7 s Aryan Maori theories/These works, along with yearbooks, encyclopaedias, and biographical col­lections, both old and new, gave only the sketchiest idea of what he did, particularly in his first 40 years in New Zealand. Indeed it seemed as if Tregear lived in almost complete obscurity until the 1890s.

What was even more disturbing was the fact that when I went to check what little was stated about his early life, more often than not I found it fictitious. And it soon became apparent that Tregear, when he became a public figure, told a few lies about his earlier days. I can remember spending a long time frantically and fruitlessly chasing all kindsof false trailsin theNational Archives. In retrospject this research was in fact very useful. Historians tend to overlook the extent to which not finding things that they expject helps to shap>e their

project.Even when Tregear became Secretary for Labour a

major archival source was missing - the Department of Labour files for the pjeriod were largely destroyed in the Hop>e Gibbons Building fire in Wellington in 1952.

This early sense of despair was compounded by the fact that Tregear was too self-effacing ever to write his memoirs, or even keep a diary. He was not usually in the habit of keeping correspondence sent to him. He did amass voluminous study notes during his life, though these were destroyed by his widow. His library was offered to the Turnbull Library after his death but apparently that institution was not very interested. The family ended up gettinga 'pittance7 for it from Bethunes.

At the time there were several occasions when I considered giving up the project since I thought that I could never find out just where he was and what he was doing, let alone analysing his thoughts and actions. But I continued the research, and after six years I actually ended up with far more material than I could handle.

Early life:As far as Tregear's early life in England was con­

cerned, I got some scrappy information from the usual sources - birth and baptismal registers, street directo­ries. Before his early death, Tregear's father was a skippjer with P&O and that organisation provided some material. Tregear came to New Zealand in 1863 as a lad of 17 with a mother and two sisters to support. For more than 20 years he was, I eventually found out, in various places throughout the North Island as a soldier, gold digger, government and private surveyor. Useful sources here were Army Department and Lands and

Survey records in the National Archives. I found street directories, electoral rolls, almanacs, gazettes, bank­ruptcy records all helpful. The Intention to Marry records and then Divorce files provided invaluable material about Tregear's marriage to a divorcee. I spent some time examining specific local sources, especially places like New Plymouth, Hawera and Patea, reading local newspapers, along with town board records.3 The re­gional Lands and Survey offices in Auckland, Hamil­ton, and New Plymouth were also used.

From such sources I eventually managed to piece together a picture of what Tregear did before he finally moved to Wellington and prominence in the mid-1880s.

Polynesian studies:Coping with Tregear's Polynesian studies was less

of a problem, in so far as sources were concerned, mainly because of his own books and his very extensive publications in the Transactions and Proceedings o f the New Zealand Institute, Journal o f the Polynesian Society, and in various British anthropological journals. An­other major source was the Polynesian Sodety papers.4 Tregear was a co-founder of this Society as well as co­editor (with Percy Smith) of its Journal for many years. These papers proved a wonderful resource, containing as they do correspondence between Tregear and most of the Polynesian scholars throughout New Zealand, the Pacific, and Europe. Tregear was a great corre­spondent and while he did not keep copies of his letters, many of them survive in this and other collections. Tregear often wrote letters as others might write a daily diary. He was never afraid to express his views and feelings and, to his confidants like Percy Smith, fre­quently revealed his innermost soul. Another useful source for Tregear's Polynesian studies is the John White papers.5 ! found valuable scraps of material in libraries and archives throughout New Zealand and also overseas, especially in Canberra, Sydney and Hono­lulu.

Secretary for Labour:As I have mentioned, most of the Department of

Labour files for Tregear's period have been destroyed, though some useful files survived. Fortunately, how­ever, there still exists a huge primary record, especially in voluminous parliamentary papers and Labour De­partment publications. Of extreme value were letters Tregear wrote to William Pember Reeves on Reeves' departure to London.6 Through these I could trace Tregear's tortuous route through the Liberal's labour legislation and especially the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Reeves was Tregear's confessor and there is much that is revealing in this correspond­ence. Another key archival source, and one that awaits a thorough investigation, is the John A. Millar papers.2 Millar was Minister of Labour after Seddon. The Tregear- Millar relationship is fascinating, and I certainly got a very different picture of Millar from the rather deroga­tory one that appears in most of the histoiy books, crossing the floor in his pyjamas to vote the Liberals out of power.

There was not an issue or development within the labour movement generally that Tregear was not asso­ciated with from the 1890s through to 1913 when he became the president of the Social Democratic Party. So central is the history of the labour movement to Tregear's

career that almost anything and everything relating to it had relevance. Extant collections of labour figures invariably contain material by or on Tregear - for exam­ple, the papers of Harry Holland,8 J.A. McCullough,9 A.P. McCarthy, J.T. Paul, and Mark Silverstone.™ A range of Labour Party material, much of it in the Turnbull Library, was obviously of value. I must also mention the very valuable trade union history records in the private collection of Bert Roth, who very kindly gave me access. And then there is the mass of newspapers, and trade union publications for the period.

One of the, to me, surprising dimensions of Tregear's labour activities was the extent of his links with leading US labour reformers. As Peter Coleman has shown in his much overlooked book,11 there were many in the United States who looked to New Zealand, with its emphasis on the social role of the state, to provide the model for the decent society in the twentieth century. New Zealand's most active publicist in this regard was Tregear. There were two major sources for such activ­ity. First, there is Tregear's extensive correspondence with prominent US journalist and reformer Henry Demarest Lloyd.12 Second, Tregear wrote many arti­cles for US reforming periodicals, like Arena and Inde­pendent, explaining and justifying the role of the state in New Zealand.

Literature:Tregear regarded himself as a poet. Poetry and

literature generally were Tregear's constant compan­ions through life. Apart from his creative writing - which consisted of a book of fables, a book of Polynesian tales, a novel, and poetry - he had a remarkably reveal­ing correspondence with A.G. Stephens, the Australian critic and writer for the Bulletin.

Family life:One of the attractions of biography is to be able to

focus on the smallest unit of historical research - a single person. Behind all the mighty issues and events that concern historians, there are always individuals with particular habits and personalities. In my biography I place great emphasis on juxtaposing the private Tregear with tire public man. But how can you uncover this private Tregear? Apart from the more revealing aspects of the sources I have already mentioned, there are some additional key ones.

There are some glimpses of the private man in some papers in the Turnbull Library, in particular some rec­ollections of his daughter.14 But what really brought Tregear to life for me, and hopefully for my readers, was my tracking down of two of Tregear's grandchildren (Mrs Vera Maclean and Mr Herbert Robinson), and his great-nephew (Air-Vice Marshal Ian Morrison).

They all enthusiastically supported my project and I ha ve spent dozens of hours interviewing them. In brief they supplied me with two categories of material. First, between them they had a wonderful collection of pho­tographs, some of Tregear's schoolboy notes on Cor­nish history and Tregear family genealogy, some cher­ished family letters and papers that escaped the wid­ow's fire, including a most moving farewell letter he wrote to his wife just before he died in his eighty-sixth year. There was also a large collection of T regear' sown newsdippings. The great-nephew also had a collection of Tregear's early and unpublished poetry which I have

found extremely revealing of Tregear's innermost thoughts. I published this together with Tregear7 s other verse some years ago.15

But second, Tregear's two grandchildren shared with me their very vivid recollections of the man in his later life. These are not childhood memories, but adult ones, since the grandchildren were in their 20s by the time Tregear died and they had lived close to him, in Picton, where Tregear retired. I cannot emphasisenough how important this has been to my understanding of the style and personality of the man. I got wonderful snippets about things like his daily habits, his sayings, and his perpetual motion machine.

But what proved even more illuminating than these memories were aspects of Tregear family oral tradition that has come only through the female line.A dominant feature of the family tradition was the intensely loving re­lationship betw een Tregear and his wife Bessie. At one point I tentatively asked the granddaughter if she knew about Bessie's di­vorce. 'Ah', she said quietly, 1 wondered if you would find out.'And she then pro­ceeded to reveal to me some most intimate in­form ation about Bessie's first marriage and about Tregear's and Bessie's married sex life. The grandson had been unaware of it until then and was quite 'shocked', not by the details but because he had not been privy to a family secret. This information has been crucial in helping me to analyse aspects of Tregear's character, his literature, and his public works. As a biographer I feel very privi­leged to have been given quite unprecedented personal access to someone who was prominent so long ago.

Implications and conclusions.I'm not sure what lessons if any for archivists can be

drawn from this rather crude survey of my sources for this biography of a public figure.

In thinking now about where they all came from, the overriding conclusion is that I grubbed bits from every­where and from a very wide variety of sources most of which ostensibly had nothing to do with Tregear. That is, the existence of these sources was for reasons other than providing material for some future biographer of Tregear. I never did discover a great single, all-enlight­ening Tregear archival source, the sort of material, for example, that Keith Sinclair had for Walter Nash, or the sort of collections public figures now like to deposit in National Archives, presumably in eager anticipation of their future biographers.

Perhaps this has some implications for those in­

volved in thinking about collection strategies. My par­ticular research experience would seem to cut across neat collection categories. In part this is because of the nature of the beast. Tregear was involved in so many activities and his life encompasses so many fundamen­tal themes and issues in New Zealand history. In part too it is because neither he nor anyone else attempted to make a substantive collection around him as a public figure. Personally I do not now find this a problem, though obviously I did ini daily. The point is that Tregear has emerged from the record despite its nature. Collec­tors of material can never anticipate the research needs of future researchers. Indeed it may even be dangerous

if they attempt too con­sciously to do so, for it is in the very uncon­sciousness and fortui­tousness of collecting that others may later find their gems.

Researchforthisbi- ography brought sev­eral other things home to me. For example, I realised just ho w small New Zealand society is and how very close we still are to what we call history. It took no more than a couple of days to track down the Tregear grandchildren and to discover that he was still very much a living part of their fam­ily tradition. I con­tacted scores of people all over New Zealand. Every single one was unfailingly generous in their support. But in

spite of the smallness, the intimacy, and the closeness of New Zealand society and its history, the past is still very largely virgin territory for historians. At the beginning of this project I had naively assumed that much of New Zealand's history, especially during the later nine­teenth/ early twentieth century, had pretty much been 'done'. In other words, I thought that Tregear's life could readily be set against the 'times' as recorded by historians. But this was not the case. With the major exception of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and the origins of the Labour movement, most topics/areas where I followed Tregear are largely unresearched. While there are several important recent works that helped to illuminate the general socio-politi­cal context in which Tregear operated,16 the limits of such knowledge were much closer than I expected. My view now is that in spite of the excellent New Zealand history that has appeared in recent times, it still barely scratches the surface. In this regard I am reminded of one of Tregear's favourite quotations from Tennyson: Tor we are Ancients of the earth, and in the morning of the times.'

I have a much better appreciation of how extensive and rich is archival material in the regions. And I am more conscious of how much of our historical record

"It i excellent. I'd like to buy the rights to pu t it out on parchment. ”

still lies in private hands either in documents or in memories.

Finally, my research led me directly to the two, and the only two substantive socio-intellectual traditions this country has given the world. These traditions are the pakeha interpreting of Maori/Polynesian culture and history, and the conceptualising and administering of the moderate, paternal state. Tregear played a semi­nal role in both these developments.

Books are creatures of their times. Indeed even the archival record itself ultimately has no voice other than through the publicly expressed priorities/values of those who interpret it. I began my research on this biography in 1984, the same time as New Zealand was set on a course of dramatic change. Had I written this book in the 1970s, many of the issues would have been quite unproblematic. But in the 1980s they have devel­oped a keen, sometimes painful poignancy. History for me, as never before, became a mirror of the present.

For example, Tregear's Maori/Polynesian scholar­ship highlights serious questions central to modem racial issues, such as 'who owns New Zealand's past?' And with regard to Tregear's moderate 'socialism' there is a most disturbing sense of deja vu. State intervention in Tregear's day was seen as necessary to prevent the excesses of the free market, to prevent, in the language of the time, the social and industrial evils of the Old World taking root in the New. But now we are told that such solutions are in fact the cause of our problems. It is ironic that New Zealand by 1900 was hailed by political reformers in England, the US and elsewhere, as the birthplace of the twentieth century because of its pater­nal state and its rejection of untrammeled libertarian­ism. Now, in the 1990s New Zealand is being hailed in some quarters as the birthplace of the twenty-first cen­tury thanks to exemplary deregulation and privatisa­tion.

In 1890 Tregear wrote a paper urging the creation of a New Zealand archives. He concluded:

the literary collection is a national duty, concerning which there can be no doubt, and which, if we neglect, we shall earn the well-deserved approbrium

of those to whom forgetfulness of national welfare in the individual pursuit of wealth will not appear to be the end and aim of human existence.17 In this regard, the archives of New Zealand have

indeed served Tregear and his biographer extremelywell.

1 K R H ow e, Singer in a songless land. A life of Edward Tregear, Auckland U niversity Press, 1991.

2 M ichael Belgrave, 'A rchipelago of exiles: a study in the imperialism of ideas: Edw ard T regear and John M acmillan Brow n', MPhil thesis. U niversity of Auckland, 1979; Peter Gibbons, "T u rn in g tram ps into taxp ayers" - the D epart­m ent of Labour and the casual labourer in the 1880s', MA thesis, M assey University, 1970.

3 For exam ple. N ew Plym outh Library, Taranaki M useum , H aw era District C ounty Offices, Patea M useum , Patea C ounty Council Offices.

4 MS 1187, A lexander Turnbull Library, W ellington (W Tu).5 MS 75, W Tu.6 W P Reeves, 'Letters w ritten ... b y Men of M ark in N ew

Z ealand', MS M icro 182, W Tu.7 MS G roup 21, W Tu.8 MS 1815, W Tu.9 C anterbury M useum Library.10 Respectively MS 963, MS 982, MS 1016, H ocken Library,

Dunedin.11 Peter J Colem an, Progressivism and the world of reform . New

Zealand and the origins of the Am erican welfare state, Law ­rence, Kansas, 1987.

12 H D Lloyd, Papers, MS M icro 473, W Tu.13 T regear Papers, MS 5 5 4 ,7 7 7 , W Tu.14 V era Robinson, T h ases of m y father's life', T regear P a­

pers, MS 554.15 K R H ow e (ed). The verse of Edward Tregear, N agare Press,

Palm erston N orth, 1989.16 A m ong the m ost useful w ere: David H am er, The New

Zealand Liberals: the years of pow er, 1891-1912, Auckland, 1988; Erik Olssen, The Red Feds: revolutionary industrial unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908­1914, Auckland, 1988; Miles Fairbum , The ideal society and

- its enem ies: the foundations of m odem New Zealand society 1850-1900, A uckland, 1989.

17 Tregear, T h e archives o f N ew Zealand', M onthly Review, 2(1890), 625.

A Rediscovery of the PastBuddy Mikaere

In the February 1992 issue of Metro magazine, histo­rian Jock Phillips suggested that New Zealanders are beginning to wake up to the past around them and asks the question "Why is this?" He thinks that it is:

. . . simply one indication of the country's decline as people look back nostalgically and invent a glorious past when the present becomes too awful to contem­plate.

But more seriously he goes on to suggest that with the . . . new assertion of Maori rights, Pakeha New Zealanders have suffered a loss of confidence and clarity of vision in the past fifteen years. History becomes one way of helping to re-establish direc­tion and get to know our own society for better or worse.

. . . The fundamental impulse driving the rediscov­ery of New Zealand history isnotanniversariesbut the simple fact that the subject has reformed itself. It has begun asking big questions about our way of life, and so New Zealanders are interested in turning to the past for answers.1I think this is a terrific development in New Zealand

but I don't think the rediscovery of a national history is unique to our country, in fact it's something that's happening all over the world.

What I want to talk about are some of the trends emerging overseas. I believe we can take a lesson from the overseas experience and draw some parallels with what's happening here. Then I'd like to talk about where I think archivists fit in these developments.

I admire Robert Hughes, an Australian writer living in New York. You might know him for his definitive work on the transportation of convicts to Australia, The Fatal Shore (London 1987). Writing in Time magazine recently, Hughes talked about 'political correctness' and gave an example of it from the literary world. He says that in the newly published Columbia History of the American Novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe is said to be a better novelist than Herman Melville because she was 'socially constructive' and because Uncle Tom's Cabin helped rouse Americans against slavery, whereas the captain of the Pequod was a symbol of laissez-faire capitalism with a bad attitude toward whales.2

We can probably think of our own recent examples in this field as well; Noddy and Big Ears, branded as racist and banished from libraries because of those naughty golly-wogs. But according to Hughes it's in the area of history, not literature, that political correctness has scored its largest successes.

The reading of history is never static. There is no such thing as the last word. And who could doubt that there is still much to revise in the story of the European conquest of North and South America that historians inherited? Its basic scheme was impe­rial: the epic advance of civilisation against barba­rism; the conquistador bringing the cross and the sword; the red man shrinking back before the cav­alry and the railroad . . . So now in reaction to it, comes the manufacture of its opposite myth. Euro­pean man, once the hero of die conquest of the Americas, now becomes its demon; and the victims, who cannot be brought back to life, are sanctified. On either side of the divide between Euro and native, historians stand ready with tarbrush and gold leaf, and instead of the wicked old stereotypes, there is a whole outfit of equally misleading new ones.We have our own local examples of this kind of

thinking and the one that springs to mind was the beheading of a statue of Sir George Grey in Albert Park, Auckland, several years ago. We probably do regret some of the things that George Grey did but we should also remember that much of what we know about nineteenth-century Maori life comes from the priceless manuscript material he collected. The decapitation was an act of ignorance, of intellectual vandalism. I am not an apologist for him, but men like Grey should be judged in a balanced way, remembered for their good works and forgiven their human frailty. Hughes again:

The need for absolute goodies and absolute baddies runs deep in us, but it drags history into propa­ganda and denies the humanity of the dead: their sins, their virtues, their failures. To preserve com­plexity, and not flatten it under the weight of anach­ronistic moralising, is part of the historian's task. You cannot remake the past in the name of affirma­tive action. But you can find narratives that havn't been written, histories of people and groups that have been distorted or ignored and refresh history by bringing them in.I like Hughes' reference to denying the dead their

humanity; their sins virtues and failures. It reminds me about one of the stories of my own people, Ngati Pukenga, who are also known as Hamuti Wera. Loosely translated it means Trot shit'. The name comes from a time when our people had agreed to a fight with some

rivals. Just on dawn, one of our chiefs crept over the hill to where the enemy were camped and saw that we were badly outnumbered. Well, what could a prudent peo­ple do but scram, leaving behind only the steaming piles of our morning toilet to do our fighting. That's how we got that name. To the politically correct, this is probably not a nice story but it's stories like this that keep my people human and therefore make us real.

There have been big changes in the history now being taught in New Zealand. Maori history especially is treated with a much greater sensitivity, a reflection of the Maori assertiveness that Jock Phillips noted. But perhaps there is some caution needed here.

A changed sensitivity to the textbook treatment of minorities has also been part of the American experi­ence. But for some this is apparently not enough. For example there is a view that only blacks can write the history of slavery, only Indians that of pre-European America, and so forth.

In America this has led to the emergence of such movements as Afrocentrism which argues that the his­tory of the cultural relations between Africa and Europe is rubbish - a prop for the fiction of white European supremacy. Although paleohistorians agree that intel­ligent human life began in the rift valley of Africa, the Afrocentrists go further in insisting that Africa is the cultural father of us all. European culture derives from Egypt, Egypt is part of Africa, ergo. Hughes says that to plow through the literature of Afrocentrism is:

. . . to enter a world of claims about technological innovation so absurd that they lie beyond satire. Afrocentrists have at one time or another claimed that Egyptians alias Africans: invented the wet-cell battery by observing electric eels in the Nile; and that late in the first millenium BC they took to flying around in gliders. Fifteen hundred years ago Tanza­nians were smelting steel with semiconductor tech­nology. There is nothing to prove these tales, but nothing to disprove them either - a common condi­tion of things that didn't happen.In America this invention of a sort of remedial

history is allied with situations where the utterances of any oppressed person or group deserves instant cre­dence, even if they're the merest assertion. There is a strong parallel in this country. We all know for example that there is a body of opinion which says that Maori history and tradition are taonga and therefore 'prop­erty' to be dispensed or withheld at the whim of the guardians.

Of course there are some valid reasons for that. Maori do feel that their history has been ripped off by people furthering their own, usually academic, careers, with no tangible return. In dealing with Maori history you deal with a people who were defeated militarily and culturally oppressed. Because so much has been lost, Maori are defensive about what little remains. Some Maori give the spiritual significance of the mate­rial as a reason for their stance, but I think that's mostly front - it's again protecting the little that's left with a spiritual smokescreen.

But that's not really what I'm talking about. An article appeared recently in Terra Nova magazine which purported to review an old Maori tradition concerning the tussock high country of the South Island. The tradi­tion - so the article went - told of three types of tussock personified as three sisters, that these three sisters were

carried in round packs by groups of up to three thou­sand people, split and planted.-*

. . . each quarter was replanted twenty paces out north, south, east or west of the original p lant. . . seedlings were also grown in garden nurseries for planting out in depleted areas . . . between the tussocks various plants were gardened. Food spe­cies included kumara, taro, ti kouka and other intro­duced species . . . medicinal plants were also gar­dened in the tussocklands. . .I am astounded that no-one has come forward to

dispute the nonsense of this article. Is everyone so cowed by the need to be politically correct that normal critical analysis is suspended?

The point about political correctness is that in the end it helps no one. Maori are held up to ridicule because while in this instance the experts in the field have been slow to reply, not so the wags: let me read you some extracts from one response:4

Recounting some old knowledge of the Waitaha nation, tangata whenua of the high country provide a particular perspective on the degradation, reha­bilitation and andent use of the ski-fields. "We were brought up by three snowmen of the pukenga, the high country. Hukapapa, the huge tall billowy one who roamed the highest peaks. He was the tallest of all. Taller than me. The middle one was Hukamama, and the short one, prevalent today, Hukapepe.The snowmen were carefully looked after by the caring Waitaha of old. Their every need was met. It was found they had micro-ecologies of their own. Eels and whales depended on that ecosystem. Where the snow cover was totally devastated, they trekked miles to get some fresh snow... The old ones could tell the weather by the snow [and] what the weather patterns had been in the past. . .In An Illustrated History o f New Zealand one author

writing on Maori histoiy manages to get through the 1820s and 1830s with no mention of the tribal warfare whose complex consequences we deal with daily in the Waitangi Tribunal.5 Why? Because we have been re­invented as a mirror image of the Pakeha: they are greedy and aggressive, we are peaceable and spiritual - and unreal. We don't exist in our own terms but are obliged to exist as a product of a Pakeha imagination.

Another recent work about first contact between Maori and Pakeha gives a further example. In this book European accounts of first contact are rigorously exam­ined but there is no similar analysis of the Maori ac­counts and my ancestors remain neolithic noble sav­ages, just as remote from me as they have always been and just as unreal.^

As the work of the Waitangi Tribunal has shown, the claims of the victim do have to be heard because that cast a new light on history. But they have to pass exactly the same tests as anyone else's or debate fails and truth suffers. Hughes says that:

. . . the PC [politically correct] cover for this is that all statements about history are expressions of power history is written only by the winners and truth is politicaland unknowable. .. It is not hard to see why these claims for purely remedial history are intensi­fying today. They are symbolic. Nationalism (or in our case the Maori search for rangatiratanga, au­tonomy) always wants to have myths to prop itself up; and the newer the nationalism the more ancient

its claims. It is a desire for self esteem but that desire should not justify every lie and exaggeration and therapeutic slanting of evidence that can be claimed to alleviate it. The separatism it fosters turns what ought to be a recognition of cultural diversity, or real multiculturalism, tolerant to both sides, into a perni­cious symbolic program.Maori people will achieve rangatiratanga, will

achieve self-esteem, but if that is to endure it should have as its foundation not the self-seeking posturing of the politically correct, but true knowledge. Self-esteem comes from doing things well, from discovering how to tell a truth from a lie and from finding out what unites as as well as what separates us. It is in the search for truth that archivists have an important role to play.

I think one of the reasons I have been asked to speak here today is because some Pakeha genuinely seek to understand the historical Maori point of view. But I feel frustrated about i t In the last ten months I've spoken to three archivist or archivist-related groups. I keep telling Pakeha - because generally you have the ability to do something about it, what is wrong from our, the Maori, point of view - and keep being ignored.

These are some of the things that are wrong:There are large Maori language manuscript collec­

tions in many archives and if we are to have a shared history then those collections need to be accessible. Comprehensive indexing is required and that index needs to be available on a national basis, if not held at major provincial libraries and university libraries, then at least accessible by computer modem.

But while indexing of these collections is laudable it is not sufficient because indexes are unable to give content

Because the language has changed so much since the 1830s when Maori first began to write, specialists are required to do index synopses of the archival material and to begin the massive task of providing proper translations of the material. I rely on a specialist for my primary source nineteenth-century Maori material. So too should Archives. Why? Archivists sometimes allow incompetent translations to exist in their collections. The example I can think of is in the Atkinson Papers where the translation of a code of Maori laws refers constantly to Tcnees'. It is the mistaking of the word turi (knee), for ture (law). This kind of work creates the impression that the translator was not a specialist and was possibly hired because they were Maori, or because they'd 'done' some Maori, and it reinforces Maori feel­ing that our material is misunderstood, undervalued, and might therefore explain why it is being constantly ignored.

Archivists working in this area need to have the necessary language skills - as a minimum they should be able to read nineteenth-century Maori.

I'd like to talk briefly about another users problem which I call the 'Ehara to matou maunga i te maunga haere' (our mountain does not travel) syndrome. It seems unreasonable to me that despite living in the age of the technological miracle, making photocopies of the major manuscript collections available at main centre libraries throughout the country seems to be a task beyond us. One notable exception is the placing of copies of the Grey collection from the Auckland Public Library in the University of Canterbury Library, but note that it was a user initiative, not an archivists's.

Even working photocopies or microfiche seem be­yond some Archives who refuse the copying of material on the grounds that they are too fragile. I draw a parallel with an episode of Yes Minister, where a hospital func­tioned perfectly because its didn't have the inconven­ience of having to look after patients.7 One Archive I know os allows absolutely no photocopying at all of manuscript material and the suggestion that the Ar­chive itself make a master photocopy is rejected on the grounds of lack of space. Of course there should be proper care of the originals, no one complains about that, but it's an abuse of power to withhold copies and it is kind of appropriate that I should have begun this section with a proverb which talks about immovibility.

I'm sure there are a range of reasons which could be trotted out to defend what seems to me to be the indefensible: costs, risk of damage etc., but isn't the kaupapa more than just being simply collectors, conser­vators and gatekeepers? Isn't there an obligation to add

to the body of human knowledge? What kind of com­ment is it on race relations and the principles of partner­ship we all espouse, if the literary heritage of one of those partners languishes in darkness. Kia ora.

1 Jock Phillips, 'A Past W orth Exploring?', M etro,. Feb 1992 7 Robert H ughes, T h e Fraying Of A m erica', Tim e, 3 Feb 1992.3 Diane Lucas, T u ssock Planting Tim e A gain', Terra Nova Resource Science, Issue 9, Sept 1991. pp 53-54.4 Ruka Rakaihautu, 'Snow Tending Tim e A gain', (private com m unication).5 Judith Binney et al.. The People and the Land: an Illustrated History of New Zealand 1820-1920, W ellington (Allen & Unwin) 1990.6 Anne Salmond, Two W orlds: First M eetings between M aori and Europeans, 1642-1772, Honolulu (U niversity of H aw aii Press) 1992.7 T h e Com passionate Society', chap ter/episod e 8 in The Complete Yes M inister, London (BBC Books) 1981.

Presidential Addressor, 'To Solicit Or Not To Solicit:

Some Thoughts Of A Professional Woman'Rosemary Collier

These two and a half days have seen almost half the total membership of the New Zealand Society of Archi­vists meeting together in conference for the first time, to consider aspects of a topic which impinges on the work of almost every archivist.

One of the core problems behind our discussions over this time is that almost every Archives, even in­cluding those with statutory responsibilities like Na­tional Archives, has to have a collections policy or acquisitions policy. Certainly we should prevent the export of literary and other papers if we can, but it would be wasteful of effort and resources if we were all to decide actively to collect such materials. If a market value should be established more and more often for such papers, then fewer and fewer institutions could afford to purchase them without State assistance. We also need to consider whether the archivist has a re­sponsibility to assist in establishing such values, and has the ability to do it.

Frank and I met in Vancouver last year an antiquar­ian book dealer who represented the trade on a regional committee set up by the National Archives of Canada to review appraisal decisions on federal records in British Columbia. He asserted that archivists had no idea of market value, and that their appraisal decisions were unrealistic and were filling up the Archives with use­less paper. How would we face up to such outside involvement in what we consider to be professional decisions?

A national collection policyWith the costs of storage of archives, we should be

getting to a stage where we not only apply appraisal techniques to private papers, but also consider a na­tional collection policy for such papers, and that is what I would like to propose. This Society could be the forum for such a policy to be formulated. Of course, consider­able informal, and even occasionally formal co-opera­tion goes on now, but perhaps we need to be more formal about this.

Such a proposal, of course, smacks of centralism and control by other than market forces, and is therefore against the tenor of the times. But for argument's sake let us consider it a little further.

If we were to establish principles for a national policy, these might include the basis for laying down which one is the logical institution for a given set of papers, and both the papers and the monetary assist­ance could be directed there. Or would it be too much like 'Big Brother' to publicly fund only those institu­tions whose accessions were in accordance with the policy?

One of the principles might be 'where were these papers generated?' This was the principle Stuart Strachan postulated under the title 'Genius Loci' at the archives seminar held by ARANZ in conjunction with the NZLA conference in Hamilton, February 1978. The theme was 'Co-operation or Competition in Preserving Archives in New Zealand'. Archives should remain in

the place in which they were generated, he said, or as near as possible if there was no local repository. This, he continued, was important for the full preservation of evidential values.

This thinking may appear to run counter to the idea of any one, or more than one, institution holding a 'national collection'. It perhaps assumes that those local to the scene where papers were generated are those most likely to be interested in them. This may be true of administrative archives, but personal papers can be more readily categorised as of national significance or of purely local significance.

Of course, if one writer or politician's papers were generated in several different locations, this would not mean that they should be divided up between those places, as has happened all too often in Britain, but that a rational decision would need to be made as to which was the most significant of the various locations. Papers left in a will to a specific institution would be unaffected by such a policy, of course. But potential donors could be given copies of the policy in order to assist them in making a decision about the resting place for their papers.

The policy would not be binding on anyone, but if generated by a group of professional archivists would carry such weight as the profession has, especially if archivists in the larger institutions acceded to it.

Some of the people whose papers may come under our consideration have generated portions of their pa­pers overseas, but if they are New Zealanders we would surely all advocate that if possible their papers should be kept in New Zealand. But if there are national collections, are there perhaps also international collec­tions? The Katherine Mansefield manuscripts at the Turnbull Library would surely fall into this category. It is conceivable that there is more interest in her papers in other countries than there is in New Zealand - should they then be held in another country? She spent more of her life in England than in New Zealand. The same is true of Dan Davin, whom James McNeish mentioned yesterday. Will the British Fund be appealed to, to prevent the export of Davin's papers from the UK to New Zealand?

Other principles in the policy could include recom­mending that donors place papers only in repositories with full-time professional archivists on the staff, hav­ing proper accommodation, shelving etc., facilities for researchers, and meeting other criteria for a profes­sional archives service. A sample donor agreement could form part of the policy. The policy would be an important document of this Society, along with the Code of Ethics.

In Britain, the British Records Association, which is somewhat akin to ARANZ in being an interest group but including professional archivists, acts as a central clearing house for papers which are worth preserving but have no designated destination. Very frequently they come from solicitors (!) who consider papers, from estates they are winding up, to be worth preserving. The BRA examines the papers and then directs them to the institutions it considers should have them. This could be on a subject basis - for example the papers of a doctor might be sent to the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. But in my observation it has usually been on a geographic basis that they are distrib­uted, in answer to questions about the locations where

the records creator lived and worked, or the region to which the papers themselves related.

Strategies for co-operationQuite apart from any policy for directing papers to

an appropriate institution, with increasing use of com­puters it should not be impossible to see a day in the future when repositories and individuals can find out on-line what is held in other repositories. Much of this sharing of lists and finding-aids could be carried on now, by means of the photocopier and the postage stamp, as well as by microfilming, and hopefully soon by means of the Internal Affairs centres to which Kathryn Patterson alluded. Buddy Mikaere has put in a strong word for the spread of finding-aids and of copies of the archives themselves.

Through greater knowledge of each other's hold­ings we can then be in a better position to identify strengths and weaknesses, one institution relative to another, and formulate both individual collecting poli­cies and, as I have suggested, a national policy.

While the Society could take a lead in this, the number of Archives repositories in the country may well have reached the stage where a forum for their heads is needed, such as is provided in other fields by bodies such as the Museum Directors' Federation, the university Vice-Chancellors' Committee, and the Sec­ondary School Principals' Association. Such a group­ing, whether formal or informal, could discuss the most suitable disposition of papers that may have no desig­nated resting place, or that may come up for sale in the market. A group of this kind would also, by its very existence, enhance the status of the archivist profession and open a new era of co-operation in all aspects of archival work. Like the Museum Directors, they could sponsor touring exhibitions, encourage and facilitate training, be a vehicle for channelling lottery funds spent on conservation by identifying priorities, and a host of other co-operative activities.

James McNeish talked about the aggressive solicit­ing done by the Mugar Library at Boston University. Last May, Frank and I visited another American ar­chives institution which had in the past adopted very aggressive collecting practices, even to the point of being deceitful. This was the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, whose presiding archi­vist is none other than Tom Wilsted, founding Presi­dent of ARANZ and former Curator of Manuscripts at the Turnbull Library. His predecessor in Wyoming had raised many hackles in the archives business as he went about purchasing medieval manuscripts and other docu­ments, and sending begging letters on several different specially-printed letterheads to owners of records con­cerned with geology (principally in the oil industry), entertainment (principally Hollywood), journalism,and cattle-ranching. Virtually nothing of the two ware­houses filled with the results was arranged or de­scribed. He presumably banked on the extreme unlike­lihood that any of the donors - except perhaps the ranchers and cowboys for whom there were special rooms akin to shrines with their memorabilia, saddles and photographs - would ever come to the wilds of Wyoming to see their deposits in situ.

When is it necessary to stop soliciting, and set about making the papers accessible?

Where's the money coming from?James McNeish addressed the question of how to

fund the acquisition of more literary manuscripts. I would like to add a few points to his. In times of economic depression use of libraries goes up, as the Librarian of Wellington's brand new public library told me the other day. So perhaps now is the time to at least make a commitment to tax concessions, and to the creation of a special fund for the deposit of such papers, when readership statistics are high both in libraries and Archives.

New Zealanders do not appear to begrudge taxes and lottery money being spent on sportspeople. Nor do they, as far as I am aware, resent money spent on bursaries for overseasstudy in the arts. With die plethora of New Zealand books now being published, sufficient to justify the publication of a quarterly review journal solely devoted to New Zealand books, and also the quantity of lottery funds available because of the runa­way successes of Lotto and Instant Kiwi, surely the extension of the NZ Literary Fund to a special fund as advocated by James McNeish is not too difficult a concept.

This could be seen as a fulfilment of out recent literary and historical nationalism. In earlier days, our scholars expected to travel overseas to do their re­search, so few indigenous New Zealand books, pub­lished here, existed. In that context it is not surprising that literary papers should go overseas, especially in cases like those of Sylvia Ashton-Wamer and Janet Frame, both of whom were first published overseas and whose subject matter and following are not confined to these islands.

This remark is not intended to condone the loss of original papers to New Zealand, but is an explanation for some of the losses. And as John O'Sullivan has explained, new legislation governing the export of manuscripts will not affect those of contemporary writ­ers unless the papers are more than thirty years old.

Perhaps the problem is one of attitude. But attitudes can and do change. I think we can contemplate a change of attitude to saving the papers of writers and of other public figures in our society. At one time it would have been inconceivable for taxpayers' money to be spent on training New Zealanders as opera singers, who then

spend almost their entire careers overseas. Yet Kiri Te Kanawa, now a household name, did receive public funds. The International Festival of the Arts in Welling­ton is subsidised by the City Council, but I have not read of an outcry about this. Remember that the Festival includes a Readers' and Writers' Week.

Of course sport and opera are more glamorous than historical research, but somebody is buying and (pre­sumably) reading all those New Zealand books. So the public taste for the results of the research is there.

McNeish also referred in passing to the risk of for­gery, when monetary values for documents became important. I recently met a Dutchman who has spent much time in the Pacific, and currently lives in Auck­land. He recounted a tale of forged artifacts being put on sale recently at an Auckland art auction. If you wish to read a fascinating account of the same thing happen­ing with documents, I recommend The Mormon Mur­ders. Museum staff and archivists are not exempt from being hoodwinked by such forgeries.

In conclusionAre archivists then, to spend their time soliciting

funds in order that they may then solicit documents? James McNeish referred to business sponsorship of the fund established in Britain for the purpose of saving literary manuscripts. Does this mean the appearance of the MacDonald's McNeish Collection looms, or the Kentucky Fried Frame Papers? I hear that at least three former DIC department stores are to be used to house public libraries and archives in various parts of New Zealand, and so I suggest that the new expansion of the old name could be 'Depositories of Information and Culture'.

But seriously, I put to you that greater co-operation in using our scant resources would be prudent, and that it could be by way of formulating a national collecting policy, enhanced by the exchange of individual collect­ing policies and finding-aids. I am sure neither deposi­tors nor researchers will be worried by any loss of autonomy we may feel. This Society could become a catalyst for such a development, and for lobbying gov­ernment on the matters of funding which were raised by our keynote speaker.

Archives in the Balance SheetIn mid April the NZ Government produced its Balance Sheet (statement of assets, liabilities and equity) for 31 July

1991. This was the first such accounting report since 1943.In preparing the Balance Sheet, where there were no accounting principles or market mechanisms valuations

were made by those controlling the assets. This factor, coupled with some assets never having been valued before, is considered likely to have resulted in some significant undervaluations.

The holdings of National Archives were valued at $826 million, compared with $315 million for all the national and forest parks, covering 6.7 million hectares or 26% of the land area of the country. The National Library has valued its current-use and research collections together at $502 million.

The value of the National Park land was determined using Valuation New Zealand's latest valuations, which are based on sales evidence of land in the same general locations, valued down to reflect the restrictions on alienation and exploitation of heritage land imposed by legislation [and thus appears to have regarded factors such as national amenity, conservation and catchment values as negatives].

The National Archives figure was based on the application of indicative benchmark values (based on recent sales of similar types of material where possible) to relevant categories of archives, plus individual valuation of exceptional items. The figures were reviewed by staff from the Hocken and Turnbull Libraries.

AJHR1991 B1 HY. Evening Post 4 April, Dominion 6 April 1992

Speeches by the Prime Minister & Minister of Internal Affairs, at the opening of the new

National Archives HQ, 4 December 1991.The following text has been edited from copies of the speeches supplied by the M inisterial offices.

The Prime Minister, Rt Hon J B Bolger

The great historian Santoyana said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

The National Archives contains the memory of the People and the Government of New Zealand, and it is the view of the Government that such records must survive. With that goes maximum accessibility consist­ent with preserving the physical fabric of the record, and the responsible administration of sensitivities.

We often hear of the difficulties today's New Zea­landers face living in a time of change, but as the archives show that is not new, it is a part of life. As the Soviet Union has shown, it is delaying necessary change, postponing the inevitable, that creates real problems.

Understanding what has gone before is essential for real understanding and progress. Finding that knowl­edge sometimes means looking back a long time. The memory of Government is crucial to our sense of na­tional identity, and vital for the long term accountabil­ity of Government.

At the same time, the archives are the memory of all New Zealanders. The records tell of relationships be­tween Maori and Pakeha. They record transactions by the prominent and the ordinary citizen, they show reactions to prosperity and depression. They are a

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon G E LeeToday marks a new era in the history of this area of

our cultural heritage as, with the opening of this build­ing, the Government will for the first time ever share with the nation the treasures bequeathed to it by the nation.

In the past, no-one ever saw what Archives held in the vaults. Access was limited7, and display facilities circumscribed, by inadequate accommodation.

Those days have now gone forever. This new home for National Archives has its own gallery, for exhibi­tions which are an important means of bringing our cultural heritage to public attention. The exhibition gallery will permit National Archives to fulfill an im­portant role in a manner not previously possible.

The opening exhibition is called 'Archives: The Evi­dence' . It highlights the value of using information and the risks of ignoring it. It illustrates the practical impor­tance of the information preserved at National Ar­chives.

Another 'first' is the Constitution Room, the very heart of the building, in which the Treaty of Waitangi and other important founding documents are now on permanent display for the first time. This is an exciting asset as it extends the international dimension and

resource tapped by the whole community - in histories, genealogies, economic sociological and demographic studies, and novels.

Keeping every record of Government would turn National Archives into a bonanza for property owners and a funding nightmare for Government, and finding information would be like the old gold-prospecting days. It is a key role of National Archives to authorise destruction of records, after considering the usefulness of the information they contain, to Government and the community.

That role is entirely neutral of any political consid­erations. It is open to scrutiny, and is a core ingredient of our democracy. During this year there has been intense public interest in the issue of information pri­vacy, a debate which highlights the value of informa­tion to all sections of the community.

The information contained in this buildingis a price­less asset of the nation. It reveals our history and tells us much about ourselves and our country, 'warts and all'A s an extended family we New Zealanders have travelled an interesting road together.

It gives me great pleasure to declare this new head­quarters of National Archives officially open.

provides tourists with a valuable focal point.This building also meets the other crucial test, by

providing ready accessibility for citizens, and pleasant reading rooms and other spaces for people to visit and work in.

The building is a strong statement of the Govern­ment's concern for the preservation of its archives. In December last year I had the pleasure of opening new building to house the Christchurch office of National Archives. That building has led to an upsurge in the use of archives in the region, and I am sure the same will happen here.

The availability of this building provided the oppor­tunity for solving a situation that had become both uneconomical and inconvenient, so that a former print­ing factory has undergone a remarkable transforma­tion. It must be theirony of the day that from producing so many documents for Government, this building now lives on, storing them! The clamour of the presses may have died, but duty to the civil service lives on!

With this building, National Archives takes up a home at last, and in doing so, its place alongside the nation's other major cultural assets.

NZSA NewsNew Members

Welcome to the following new members: Chris Johnson (consultant, Hawkes Bay District Council); Priscilla Hill (Bank of New Zealand); Sally Patterson (Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum); Verna Mossong (Methodist Church Archives), Kay Noble (Wanganui Regional Museum). The Treasury has be­come an Institutional member. New subscribers are the Wanganui District Library, and the Archives Office of New South Wales.

New Zealand Archives BillThe Department of Internal Affairs has produced a

discussion draft of the planned new archives law. This is an updated revised edition of the Bill introduced in July 1984, but killed off by the snap election. A copy of the Bill has been sent to the NZSA and the Council has prepared a response on behalf of the Society.

Annual General Meeting, 3 June 1992, at Turnbull House, WellingtonA disappointingly small attendance of members participated in the AGM, preceded by refreshments. Significant items discussed included:1. Reporting on our first conference in February, which

evoked a motion of thanks from members 'for organising a splendid conference'. The President noted how fortunate we were to hold it at National Archives' new premises, and to receive a generous sponsorship from U-Bix;

2. Our approach to the Minister of Internal Affairs in support of urgent progress required on National A rchives' accom m odation in Auckland and Dunedin; it was reported that registration of interest to tender had been called for, in respect of the Dunedin building;

3. We had been invited to make a submission to National Archives on the draft of a new Archives Bill. Council made a lengthy and detailed submission, within tight time restraints;

4. The Code of Ethics Committee, based in Auckland, was proceeding with the development of this important document for the Society;

5. The survey questionnaire The Archivist: a profile had elicited a good response: over sixty forms had been returned. Council will soon undertake analysing these, and publishing the results.There followed reports from the Treasurer (audited

accounts to be circulated shortly) and Editor. In response to the latter, the meeting carried with acclamation a vote of thanks to Mark Stevens for his excellent editorial

work, and for getting each issue out promptly.The election of officers resulted in returning

Rosemary Collier, Hank Driessen, Ian Matheson, Kevin Bourke and Cheryl Simes. John Lozowsky did not stand again; he was thanked for this work as Treasurer. During 1991 Heather Buchanan had resigned from Council and was replaced by Pow Lin James, who however did not wish to stand again. Council is considering co-opting members for specific tasks.

Under general business, the main topic of discussion was the status of Associate of the Society. Since the By­law on this subject was found to be null and void, the Associates Committee had considered further how Associate status should be attained. After considerable discussion, it was agreed that this would be by application from members wishing to be Associates. These applications would be recommended by the Associates Committee on the basis of candidates' demonstrated professional skills and knowledge. Council would make the final decision on granting Associateship. It was proposed that clause 27b of the Constitution be deleted. The Associates Committee was charged with the task of drafting a new By-law.

Another item under general business was agreed: to change the financial year to 1 April-31 March, and it was emphasised that the AGM should be held earlier in the year in future.

The practice of paying travelling expenses for Council members to come to meetings in Wellington was warmly endorsed.

The Society needs a distinctive logo and letterhead design, it was suggested members ideas are sought. Perhaps a prize could be offered for the best design.

From the PresidentThis is an important year in the archives world in

New Zealand—the opening of National Archives' new premises; the completion of the first year of New Zea­land's first-ever professional archivists' training course at the Wairarapa Community Polytechnic; foe first conference of NZSA; the prospect of a new Archives Bill, with much wider implications than foe 1957 Act, being introduced in Parliament soon; commencement of a new, first. National Archives building in Dunedin; anticipation of vastly improved archives accommoda­tion in Auckland.

Your Council intends to be part of foe ongoing development and promotion of archives-awareness in New Zealand, on behalf of all professional archivists. Therefore we urge all members and readers of New Zealand Archivist to support foe Society. If you have not renewed your membership for 1992 yet, please do so promptly; if you know archivists who are not members, do urge them to join. We have membership brochures and forms available—write to Hank Driessen, National Archives, P.O. Box 12-050, Wellington for copies.

Is there anything going on in your archival neck-of- foe-files? The Editor of this journal wants exactly that sought of news to pass on to other interested archivists, through these pages. Please send him anything of pos­sible interest.

Rosemary Collier

Professional ArchivistProfessional A rch ivist is a versatile H yperC ard® interface information retrieval system designed for managing small archives or library special collections comprising archives or manuscripts in various physical formats. Professional Archivist also finds application in record centres where subject or keyword access is required to collections of documents. Features include keyword and boolean searching, pop-up indexes, pull down menus, windowing and intuitive design. Through A pp leS can ™ , O foto™ or H yp erS can™ , Professional Archivist supports entry level imaging functionality, which can be used to protect precious originals from reference damage or to create presentations. Based on the data set and descriptive practice o f the popular Australian Society of Archivists Inc. publication K eep ing A rchives.

Requires an Apple Macintosh computer with minimum 2 Mb of RAM and a hard disk. Apple Onescanner or equivalent required for imaging applications.

F o r fu rth er inform ation call o r fa x M acresource tel: A U S (0 9 ) 3 6 8 1 9 8 5

fa x : A U S (0 9 ) 4 7 4 1694

Gaddafi Bums Land RecordsThe Libyan leader. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has

burned all land-ow nership records in Libya, complaining he was fed up with reconciling tribal disputes. 'All records and documents in the old land register, which showed land belonged to this or that tribe, have been burned. A new socialist land register has been opened instead, he told a meeting of Libya's Justice Ministry.

Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 1992

Forestry Records RecoveredRecords taken by a former employee of the old

Forest Service when it disbanded in 1987 have beat recovered by West Coast Timberlands (the successor agency) after a lengthy legal battle. Mr Gemot Uhrlig, now the Director of Angel Sustained Forest Management Ltd, has had to return records valued at about $300,000. They include reports critical of the management of forest reserves on the West Coast

The Press, 15 April 1992

Life In AustraliaThe Australian National Film and Sound

Archive in Canberra is complaining that it does not have the resources of staff to properly preserve the film heritage of Australia. Evidently, only 5% of the film produced in Australia 1900-1930 has survived, and lack of resources is claimed to mean even more will no w be lost through the inability of the NFSA to save it.

Ray Edmonson, Deputy Director of the Archive, says that in 1985 a study showed that 260 staff were needed, but at present only 150 staff could be supported at the present level of funding.

Weekend Australian, 16-17 May 1992(Yes, that was indeed 260 and 150, not a

misprint. The addressof the NFSA, to which suggestions can be posted, is GPO Box2002, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia - Ed.)

The Australian Securities Commission has demanded that the biographer of BudgetCorporation'shigh-profile founder, Mr Bob Ansett, hand over all research material on the now-bankrupt Melbourne businessman. ASC investigators called on Robert Pullm an and issued a notice demanding 'production of books', which carries a non-compliance penalty of $10,000 or two years jail, or both.

The notice demands "computer disks, tape recordings, annotated transcripts, draft manuscripts, printers drafts (sic) and research m ateria l", relating to the biography, which was published in 1988.

Mr Pullan said the demand had serious im plications for w riters, especially biographers. "If we are going to be turned into police informers, what are we going to do as biographers?", he said.Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 1992

Increasing Security at PROConcerned at recent major thefts of documents relat­

ing to air operations in the two world wars (police have already recovered more than 14,500 pages), security at the English PRO at Kew has been upgraded.

Thenumber of security officers has been increased at the expense of the internal messenger service. All read­ers' bags and possessions brought into the building are already searched [for IRA bombs], and now random searches are to be made of items taken into and out of the reading rooms. Training sessions in security proce­dures, for Search Department staff are to be provided. All photocopies supplied by the PRO will be on yellow p apa, and readers will be [severely] encouraged to use yellow p ap a for their own note-taking. Closed circuit TV to monitor readers is being actively considered.

The new measures have been selected as being real­istic on security grounds and sustainable within exist­ing staff limits. Some others were rejected as likely to be perceived b y readers as purely cosmetic.

PRORAD (35) January 1992

Reflex Archival Photocopy Paper

This paper, made to Australian Archives specifica­tions, is specially formulated for long term storage under archival conditions. Reflex Archival is 80gsm A4 size copying paper. It is suitable for double-sided high­speed copying, and can be used with standard and high-volume photocopiers, and office laser printers. Industrial waste fibre (cotton linters) is used instead of wood pulp.

The paper is available in Australia from; The Paper House (Fax (3) 562-8686), and Edwards Dunlop & B ] Ball (Fax (2) 708-5191). If you are interested, get in touch with them or their NZ agents and say so, for enquiries by the Editor have revealed there are presently no plans to stock the product in New Zealand.

New Archives Trainees Setup Consultancy

Five Maori women, recent graduates of the Archives Studies certificate course at the Wairarapa Polytechnic, have joined forces to offer their services to the archives and library communities. Their aim is to allow their new expertise to benefit institutions, organisations, and collections throughout the country, while individually they continue to further their experience in the management of archives.

Ma mau ka kite a muri: Ma muri ka ora a mua. Those who lead give sight to those who follow: those behind give life to those ahead.

For further information, please contact Charmaine Manaena, 151 Colombo St, Masterton. Tel (06) 378-9413.

PROV UpdateThere have been further developments in the

Australian State of Victoria, since the report published in the Summer/December 1991 issue of NZA ('A Question of Accountability7).

In March the Government announced it would merge the vacant position of Director Archival Heritage/

Keeper of Public Records, with the position of Director of Library Services. The new position. Director of Archives and Libraries, was advertised and open only to applicants within the Victorian Public Service. It effectively amalgamates the PROV and the Office of Library Services, which is responsible for overseeing the public library system in the State. At this time, it is not known if the position has been filled, or by whom.

Opposition to the merger plan was loud and widespread. Among the more prominent protests was an open letter to the Minister in the Melbourne Age (8 April 1992), in the form of a large advertisement It was signed by the Presidents of the Australian Society of Archivists and the Australian Library & Information Association.

The letter took the line that the merger of the two posts was constitutionally inappropriate, and compared it to merging the Head of the Treasury with the Auditor- General. There would be a conflict of interest if the person charged with the Keeper's regulatory role in records disposal, has also a policy implementation role in respect of libraries.

It is feared that the merger, which was introduced on the grounds of saving salary money and the explicit claim of a nexus between the archival authority and the library network, will also return the PROV to a purely passive curatorial role.

News from the NZ Film Archive

The New Zealand Film Archive has undertaken a pilot 'Last Film Search', in Masterton during April. The main aim was to acquire, for preservation and copying, any nitrate based films that remain in the community. It is also hoped that a longer term result of the film search will be to heighten public awareness of early films, so that the NZFA will be contacted if and when they are discovered. Apart from nitrate film, the NZFA also wants to assess for acquisition early 35mm acetate film, and other gauges particularly 16mm films of local or national events.

The Last Film Search pilot project was sponsored by the Bank of New Zealand. We hope to be able to report on the results in a later issue. The main project is planned to be undertaken region by region.

Directory of Archivists in New Zealand1990-1991

The Directory is a 'who's who' of the archivist profession in New Zealand, containing over eighty individual entries. Information in entries includes present position, qualifications,

career synopsis, professional and other affiliations, principal publications, special archives interests, address. 36pp, A4, printed on the same high quality paper as the New Zealand

Archivist. ISSN 1170-313X

Reduced to clear: $18.00

Cheque or institutional order form to NZ Society of Archivists Inc PO Box 27-057 Wellington. GST not payable. Price includes postage

About the ContributorsJames McNeish is a novelist playwright and broad­

caster who has worked extensively in both NZ and Europe. Among his NZ books are Mackenzie (1970), and Lovelock (1986). JE(Jim) Traue retired as Chief Librarian of the Alexander Tumbull Library in 1990, a post he had held since 1973. Since then he has been a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Librarianship, VUW. Frank Rogers is an archives consultant specialising in ar­rangement and description of personal papers. He is also the publisher of Archives Press. KR (Kerry) Howe is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Massey University. Buddy Mikaere is Director of the Waitangi Tribunal. He is the author of Te Maiharoa and the Promised Land (1988). Rosemary Collier is an ar­chives and records management consultant, and is President of the NZ Society of Archivists.

Letter to the EditorDear Sir,

There was - and may still be - a sequel to your reference to Walter Nash's "acid drops" in the cover story to the Autumn/March 1992 issue of NZA.

My family lived close to, and were friends with, the Nashs in Lower Hutt. In early 1967 Sir Walter asked me if I could make any suggestions about the arrangement of his vast collection of books and pamphlets which filled several rooms of the house. (I had just finished working as an assistant in the General Assembly Li­brary and was about to start the Library Diploma course. With such minimal experience, it's still a wonder why he asked for my advice).

The passion for collecting everything, well-known to the archivist, extended to these book collections. Included on the shelves was a rusty-looking tin which he opened to show me the contents - a dark sticky fluid. It was, he said in all solemnity, a tin of acid drops which some citizen had sent to him in response to his budget comments on the tobacco taxes.

Incidently, another elderly-looking parcel was opened from its original string to reveal a mottled steel plaque about (from memory) 6x9 inches. Wording was engraved on it to the effect that the plaque had been made by an English steel-making firm in 1938 from a bag of New Zealand west coast ironsand which Nash had taken with him on one of his trips to England as Minister of finance.

For all I know, both items - and no doubt many others of the same ilk - could still exist, among the Nash Papers at National Archives, 25 years on.

At the time of Labour's election defeat in 1960, I earned pocket money doing the Nash's gardening, and

The Papers of Public FiguresThis issue of NZA is devoted to the publication of papers presented at the Society's Conference, held at Wellington, 13-15 February 1992.

K eynote A ddress Interest is Not EnoughJames McNeish

Ideals and Realities J E Traue

Recollections of a Voyeur:Arranging the Papers of Sylvia Ashton-Wamer Frank Rogers

Rescuing a Life: Sources for the Biography of Edward TregearK R Howe

A Rediscovery of the Past Buddy Mikaere

P residential A ddress T o Solicit or Not to Solicit .„'Rosemary Collier

NZSA NewsNew Members; New Zealand Archives Bill; Annual General Meeting Report.

News ItemsArchives in die Balance Sheet; Increasing Security at PRO; NZ Film Archive News; Reflex Archival Pho­tocopy Paper; Gaddafi Bums Land Records; Life in Australia; Forestry Records Recovered; New Ar­chives Trainees Set Up Consultancy; PROV Update; Transitions.

Speeches by the PM and Minister of Internal Af­fairs, at Opening of New National Archives HQ, 4 Dec 1991

About the Contributors

Letter to the Editor:Walter Nash as a packrat (Alan Smith)

recall the papers being wheeled into the garage. The garden tools were kept in the back of the garage, in the only small space of the structure not filled with docu­ments.Alan Smith

New Zealand Archivist (ISSN 0114-7676) is the quarterly journal of the New Zealand Society of Archivists Incorporated. It is published each year in: Autumn/March; Win ter/June; Spring/September; and Summer/ December. The editor is Mark HS Stevens, whose authorship may be assumed for all items not otherwise credited. Copyright NZSA & contributors 1992. Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the NZSA. The editorial address is PO Box 136 Beaconsfield NSW 2014 Australia (Fax {2} 313-6680). All other correspond­ence to the Secretaiy NZSA, PO Box 27-057Wellington New Zealand. Contributions for publication are invited. Deadlines'for next issues are: 7 August and 6 November 1992. The journal is available through membership of the Society ($40.00 in NZ, $50.00 overseas) or separately by subscription ($40.00 in NZ, $50.00 overseas). Overseas airmail, add $10.00.