PANAMA EXPOSITION.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 42, 25 November 1913, Page 7

PANAMA EXPOSITION.

COMMISSION* TO NEW ZEALAND. Tlie names of the members of the Commission are: Governor Alva Adams, of Colorado: Messrs Thomas CI. Stallsmith ; O'Neil Sevier, a New York journalist; and Sidney A, Cloman, of the United States Army. "We are a Commission." .said Mr Sevier to a 'Southland Times' interviewer, "sent by the President of tiia United States to come hero and invite your participation in our Exposition. That Exposition is an international affair, authorised bv the several States of the Union to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, which will be finished this year. The Commission is .sent out by the United States Government, and not by the Exposition people. The character of it is shown by the personnel. There is not a San Francisco man oni It." "The Commission," Mi' Sevier continued, "left San Francisco on September 23 and has visited Sydney unofficially, and officially Melbourne, South Australia and Tasmania. We have presented our credentials from the President of the United States to the State Governments, and we have been met by the officers of those Governments with every courtesy. We have presented to them the invitation of the President that they should' participate in the Exposition. We have been met cordially, and promises have been given of co-operation, and we are led to believe that Australia will be largely represented. Our errand to New Zealand is the same, and we see many reasons why New Zealand should be represented. Chief is this: The American people, by no means an inconsiderable portion of the Englishspeaking people, have just achieved the most tremendous engineering task ever undertaken in the world, in which the French, with all their ingenuity and wealth, failed. Apart from commercial considerations, we feel that Tie have a right to expect that the people of Australia and New Zealand should be represented, as tliev will derive such great benefits from the canal."