The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JULY 15th, 1924. EMPIRE IN MINIATURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 July 1924, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JULY 15th, 1924. EMPIRE IN MINIATURE.

I in-: Empire drawn to scale is hotv

Sir Sydney Low describes his first glimpse of Wembioy. He wrote: I had been away from London for many weeks, but only »n hour after my arrival in town 1 was at Wembley; and then, until dosing time, I wandered about the great Show. It was a brief and hasty look round, but unforgettable. I intend it to lie the first of many visits; lor to know what tlie British Empire Exhibition really is, you must go there often and study its courts and buildings in detail. There is too much, far too much, to he taken in through one hurried comprehensive survey. But to liogin with it is enough to tome away with a general impicssion. 'I lie vastness of the whole is overwhelming. It is like the British Empire drawn to scale; and you cannot talk or think about the British Empire without getting into large dimensions and falling to superlatives. Fu luv few hours at AA'embley I seem to have -Loon touring this round world of ours. I had crossed seas and oceans; F had travelled through continents; I had wandered in famous historic cities. I had stood face to face with the wonders of nature and the triumphs of man’s energy and intelligence. I had passed from the tropics to the polar wastes, from hare deserts to fertile fields waving with bounteous harvests and grazing lands rich with countless herds and multitudinous flocks; from the solitude of the great hills and the haunts of the hunter and trapper to huge modern factories and mills and workshops, f had seen the stupendous cataracts of Kaieteur and Niagara, and gazed at the glaciers and snow-capped peaks of the Canadian Rockies, and sunned myself over the blue waters of the Tasmanian sen, and among the rich iilossoine and emerald verdure of Ceylon. I had turned from the splendid story (>r the British Navy to that other story, quieter hut not less splendid, of the pioneer in the wilderness, and the first Britons who turned a sod in the jungle and the hush, where f-ir

j mi mini lx? red centuries the sun Imd shone only upon the savage and the wild bcnst. In your first visit you cannot examine the contents of tlio buildings in detail; you are too much taken with the buildings themselves. Outwardly they arc unlike anything I have met with at many exhibitions and expositions in the past. They do not suggest- lath and plaster and woodwork camouflaged by canvas and cardhoard. These great halls, like those ol Industry and Engineering, and such as Canada and Australia, seem built of “perdurable .stuff.” to last through the ages, not to he taken down and folded up and carted away, like the scenery of a theatre when the show is ' over. T have known ancient and time-worn cities of stone and brick that bear an aspect less solid and permanent than these stately edifices, l’erhaps the white spaciousness of the nonunion and industrial courts left a fainter gleam upon one’s over-weigh-ted memory than the brilliancy and beauty of some of those of the Dependencies and Crown Colonies. They bore us to the glowing South. the awakening hut still mysterious East, the scented magic of the Pacific* Islands the secrets hid in the dark heart of Africa. That walled town in Nigeria is fascinating. And the lovely little Burma md >fn]aya pavilions, coruscating and

jewelled, I could hardly tear myself away from them to go and eat a hasty dinner. After the meal I strolled" into Paradise. I have a confused recolleetfon of lights gleaming over flashing waters and a hand somewhere playing Grieg and Dvorak among trees and flower-beds, as 1 strolled smoking a lazy cigarette. But what is that light, throwing a ghostly pink or green lustre over domes and cupolas and minarets, yonder at the end of the Broad Walk? It is the pavilion of India: and for a moment I rub my eves and wonder if after all I am in London or hack in Asia, living over again that first thrilling vision of the Taj under the velvet sky and golden stars of Agra. Here is Shah dehan’s temple-tomb before me in the clear night of the silvery northern moon. For that alone it is worthy going to Wembley. But there are so many other things for which it ik worth going to this enchanted ground. There has been nothing like it before, and not for long will there Ire anything like it again. Let us rejoice in Wembley, and visit it often, ail’d be thankful for the opportunities it offers us.