News and Views

Abstract

THE Royal Commission on National Museums and Galleries has carried out its labours expeditiously. Scarcely more than a year after its appointment it issued an interim report, accompanied by a volume of evidence and memoranda, and now the first part of the final report has appeared and the second is promised at an early date. The Commission's terms of reference suggested a roving commission through the institutions containing the national collections, and there was a danger that a too close interpretation of them might have led to a prolonged inquiry in which useful conclusions would have been lost under a dead-weight of detail. This danger has been seen, and has been avoided by the concentration of attention on the main aspects as they presented themselves to the commissioners in the course of their extensive investigation. The present report, therefore, deals with the more general aspects of the relationships of museums to the public and to each other, as well as to the state. It examines the actual workings of the different institutions, and makes many suggestions for more efficient methods, for example, of exhibition and of storing, of co-ordination and co-operation, and of public contact. It stresses the need of central co-ordination, -and suggests as the best means to this end the appointment of a Standing Commission covering all the institutions concerned, and having, through its chairman, ready access to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We propose to deal in separate articles with some of the points raised in this important report. The second part will be devoted to remarks and recommendations applicable to the individual institutions which house the national collections.