WELLINGTON INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 352, 24 May 1881, Page 2

WELLINGTON INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

AVbllington, Yesterday. The Industrial Exhibition was opened by His Excellency this afternoon. In reply to the address of the president, His Excellency said : —Gentlemen —I am far from thinking any apology necessary for your request that I should be present at the opening of this Exhibition. On the contrary, I am grateful to you for the wish that I should take part in the proceedings and be associated with you in your , undertaking. .Such exhibitions must always, in a new and rising country, be attended with peculiar interest, not attaching to more dazzling displays of longer established communities. We see ■in them the first tentative steps taken to ascertain what are indeed industries for which the locality is really suited, and which will eventually augment in a considerable degree the wealth of the colony, and give employment to those of its population who are not engaged in agricultural or pastoral occupations. Before this can be effectually done, however,, feelers will no doubt be thrown out irt many’ directions'without success. It is'inevitable, and it is important to remember, that probably no industry can obtain, and that certainly none deserve, success unless able to command it without permanent reliance or artificial aids to existence. ■ A manufacture which can only be secured by the exclusion of all foreign competition with Hie articles produced is a direct injury to the people at large, and a questionable benefit to the producer himself. Young, however, as New Zealand is she already possesses industries which need fear nothing from external rivalry, and I have it on good authority that her woollen manufactures very closely contested with the vineyards of Australia for the Imperial prize awarded at the Melbourne Exhibition for the most successful enterprise of colonial industry'. The articles here collected will no doubt afford material for thought and enquiry, and I trust that their exhibition may tend to promote the development of the vast resources of the colony. -