WESTLAND INSTITUTE. 



Annual Meeting : 14th December, 1904. 

 The President (Mr. McNaughton) in the chair. 



Abstract of Annual Report. 



In presenting this report to the members the Trustees hope that they 

 may give a fairly good account of the position of the society. While not 

 ignoring the many obstacles that beset its path, they have endeavoured to 

 avoid anything that might have acted as a drawback to its welfare. The 

 year has been somewhat of a stationary one, in some things of a retro- 

 grading nature, and therefore points out to us that there is something 

 required to aid the society's welfare, and that time will probably solve 

 the problem and bring about that improvement. In the meantime the 

 Trustees have done the best with the means at their command, and, as all 

 our predecessors found, the financial question was the most acute, and has 

 been so from its advent, and will remain so to the conclusion. 



The Honorary Treasurer will lay before you the balance-sheet, which 

 discloses that a certain amount of the liabilities and urgent accounts 

 have been met ; but the outstanding demands will have to be met by a 

 special vote of the meeting. 



Subsidies received from Government grant, Borough Council, and 

 Harbour Board, amounting to £37 2s. 3d., have been a welcome addition 

 to the funds, and the Trustees desire to record their thanks for the same. 



The members' roll contains sixty names, which include honorary 

 and junior ones. 



The library has been well patronised during the current year, 

 especially on Saturday evenings. The selection committee has well sup- 

 plied a number of new and popular works, about a hundred volumes 

 having been added, mostly fiction. There has been a demand for other 

 works of a higher standard, but they are beyond the income of the 

 Society. 



The reading-room is well supplied with the leading dailies and local 

 papers, which are donated to the room, and the Trustees desire to record 

 their thanks in tbis report to the proprietors for the same. 



The usual number of Government papers, including reports of the 

 Lands and Survey Offices and the Tourist Department, have been 

 received, and also the Mines Record, for which they convey their thanks 

 to the departmental officers concerned. 



The committee meetings during the year have been well attended, 

 and all business has been satisfactorily arranged. 



In the matter of the application for a grant to Mr. Carnegie, it is still 

 in abeyance, the society not having received any word of its success or 

 refusal. 



The Museum is still popular as one of the sights of the town, and 

 strangers frequently visit the same. 



The retiring Trustees beg leave to convey their thanks to the mem- 

 bers for their courtesy and assistance during the year, and to state that 



