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 retrograding 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 supplied 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 this 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 members for their courtesy and assistance during the year, and to state that

there have been no extra expenses during the year, the principal liabilities being for books, which are good assets, and for papers, which are a necessary formula of the Institute, but which have a tendency to diminish income with very little return. They conclude with a hope that the incoming Trustees may have a prosperous year.

The annual report and balance-sheet were read and adopted.

It was reported that the membership numbered sixty, including junior and honorary members; that £37 had been received during the year in subsidies; that the receipts for the year were £104 14s. 1d., and the expenditure £95 6s. 3d., leaving a credit balance of £9 7s. 10d.; that the matter of the Carnegie subsidy was still in abeyance; and that over a hundred volumes of various new works had been added to the library during the year.

Votes of thanks were passed to the retiring officers, local newspapers, and to all other benefactors of the Institute.

Election of Officers for 1904.—President—Mr. Mabin; Vice-President—Mr. G. Perry; Treasurer—Mr. D. Macandrew; Trustees—Messrs. Michel, Morton, Beare, Dunne, Clarke, Lewis, Park, McNaughton, Heinz, Mahan, Wilson, and Dr. Teichelmann.