BRITAIN’S GREAT FAIR

Hokitika Guardian, 6 January 1931, Page 2

BRITAIN’S GREAT FAIR

FEBRUARY OPENINC,

MANY STRIKING DISPLAYS

LONDON, November in. Great Britain used to lie known as “tile workshop of the world’’ and siie is still entitled to that description for in 1929 she exported manufactured goods to the value of about £570,000,000 a total substantially larger than the manufactured exports of any other country.

But in recent years it lias been found that it is no good having a workshop unless you also have a shop window, ail'd the British 1 ministries Fair has been appropriately descirbed many times as “Biritaiu’s Shop Window,” for it is-a means of attracting the attention of passers-by. An American buyer at the fair one year told an interviewer that the time saved by using the fair was for him the difference between a week and a month, and it -is not surprising that those who oppe visit it return time after time and make the fair the occasion for plneing their orders tor the year.

RECIPROCAL BUYING

In countries from which Britnln buys freely, there are always people who are disposed to reciprocate if they can by buying British goods. It is not always easy, but tho fair is designed to make it easy. A trader with customers favourably disposed to the jden of buying British goods either because of their reputation tor high quality or for patriotic or sentimental reasons, could see in the course of two days or so at the fair just where the British manufacturer could help him. He could see at a glance, as it were the kind of goods which would command sales if transported to his own country.

Some of the American buyers are alive to this, for they come to the fair each year in search of the novel the smart, the striking article such as would please the American woman. And then they appeal still further to their countrywomen’s knowledge of the soundness of British workmanship by displaying it in the shop windows of New York, labelled “Straight from the British Industries Fair.”

DUAL IDENTITY

The fair can be divided roughly into two parts—one in London which is chiefly concerned with the kind of goods which are bought by the trade to he sold again to the public; and the other in Birmingham, which is chiefly concerned, with the requirements of the industrialist himself and his engineers.

In London in February the exhibits will fill the two biggest groups of exhibition buildings which have; neverliefore been used simultaneously for tlm I'ajr. They imp the three vast exhibition buildings, at Qiympin, Hammersmith, including the world’s latest four-storey exhibition building, the Empire pi fill; mid the mile-long galleries of the White City, Shepherds Bush,

At Olympia there are 17 main trade groups 'as well as the displays of the raw materials, foodstuffs aud manufactures of the Dominions and Colonies in a special section organised by the Empire Marketing Board.

OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS

The flashing lamp of a miniature lighthouse will draw attention to one of the most important and interesting groups—the first comprehensive display o.f the British optical instrument manufacturers, an industry which came to the rescue of the country in war-time and has since proved that in the pursuits of peace no less than in war, it is able not only to hold its own, but to supply the world,

Chemicnls for industrial and medicinal purposes form another important group in the same hall; foodstuffs ancs all the equipment for the catering and food industries another; and there is a big section for linens and tweeds, ready-made clothing and all tbe accessories of dreHS other than those which come under tbe separate exhibitions for cotton and artificial silk.

PRINTING PROCESSES

Leading manufacturers of printing machinery are joining the fair in a body this year and their exhibit will include offset and lithographic presses, type-casting and type-composing machines, folding mahines and an entirely new mnehine for repnring paper for the printing process.

Printers and publishers and stationers—some of the largest firms in tbe world—hold a sort of Christmas carnival of their own upstairs, and next to them are tbe allied fancy goods manufacturers —a prolific hatching-place for novelties of every kind.

Perhaps the most exquisite and alluring exhibits are to be found in tbe leather goods section, where there are not only trunks and travelling bags, but also handbags for women, leather writing sets, cushions for the home, all of them of a kind which command sales in the very high-class shops of Bond Street in London —and some even find their way across the channel to be sold as the smartest things Paris has to offer.

BEAUTIFUL GIRLS PARADE

Tbe galleries of two vast halls at Olympia have to be bridged over to

make room for the huge displays of sports goods and toys. The big toys such as motor-cars, with pneumateic tires, real lights, amt gears, sell to almost every country in the world. Even in the small tin toys, selling at sixpence each, Britain is not completely at the mercy of Germany and British tin soldiers and farmyard animals surmount many a tariff bnrrier.

The chief development in the coming fair—and one which accounts for the greater part of a 30 per cent, increase in size—is the holding for the first time of a huge British cotton textile exhibition, at the White City, where cotton will be seen in every stage of its manufacture, culminating in a dress parade by the most beautiful English girls who can be found for the occasion.