Stephen:
I share your wish to see the flag stay here in the UK and understand totally your passionate concern.
However, sales like this are hugely problematical in that artefacts such as this flag, with all its historical associations, are regarded by many as national treasures; but they are also private property and, in a free society, this raises several questions: such as ‘how far can governments interfere in what is essentially a lawful transaction between buyer and seller?’ Had a UK private resident bought this flag, it could have disappeared into a private collection never to be seen again, and the government could do nothing about it.
If a treasure of national significance is about to be exported, the government can place a temporary ban, as it has suggested it might do in this case, to allow museums to try to raise funds to buy it. If you were the lucky overseas winner of the auction, you might feel rather aggrieved that your right to trade freely in the market place has been interfered with by government officials! Once the export ban is imposed, museums are free to attempt to raise the funds to exceed the auction price, but they have budgets to stick to, and many other demands on their funding. Even if the government stepped in and provided public funds, this might also create a furore in the media about how taxpayers’ money is spent. This ensign is important to us and we would like it to be retained at home now it has come back from Australia; to many other taxpayers, it is just an old flag. Think of the outrage in some parts of the media over subsidies to opera and other cultural funding. Reconciling differing views like these is a perennial problem for all governments of whatever political hue.
In the past, an appeal for financial contributions from the public has been one way of raising funds to keep a treasure here. (I think I mentioned on another thread my contribution of five shillings to keep the Leonardo cartoon in Britain – a bit of a cheek now I think of it. I wonder what the Italians thought of us retaining an Italian work of art here?!!) A public appeal to top up anything in the museums’ budget seems fair enough to me: those of us who care can put our hands in our pockets; others who do not then cannot complain that, as taxpayers, they are being forced to stump up for something which might not be of importance to them.
Now that we have an ‘umbrella’ organisation of Naval Museums, it might be possible for them to pool their reserves, add any funds they can raise by public appeal, with perhaps a little help from government funds that won’t bring the rage of the Philistines upon their heads, and so buy the flag. It could then be displayed in a number of museums in rotation. You may recall that this was the solution to retaining the painting ‘Diana and Actaeon’ when there was fear that it might go abroad when the owner, the Duke of Sutherland, wanted to sell it. He actually sold it to the galleries at much below the potential market price and gave the buyers time to pay. Maybe the owner of the flag, who is said to want to co-operate in allowing the flag to stay here will be similarly generous.
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/ ... s_pack.pdf
Or we might ask the bankers of Goldman Sachs, just awarded individual bonuses of £400,000+, to chuck their small change in the hat!
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