THE CHRISTCHURCH INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 179, 29 July 1880, Page 4

THE CH RISTCHURCH INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

(N.Z. Times.) The great object of the Exhibition has been abun<iaiifly achieved. Local industries have bad a fair chance to display themselves, and have got s.uch a lift us they sever hod. before. fThe public have been brought face to face with two facts ; firstly, that alcpost everything that they wont, they 'onri get made in the plaoe | nnd, eeaondly, that almost everything they can make is worth miiklnfr, ani if m.-vie properly* ail! sell for wane it i 3 woitb. We are assured tbai tto 'etd o? handicrafts were represented at thisFxbibitl.on, the want of which had lou^ been fait, but which hurriiy Bay one before knew the existence of. Let us motion one o> (wo. Packages, uu*de of paper or pasteboard, from largo drapers' boxes, eeafcly finished with hasulea, down to tiny piSI-boxtp, were shown ia great variety, of much better quality than imported ones, and at a less piice. Bone poods •— paper knives, rulers, kuiiting needles, and so forth, idbdufacturetl from bones which are otberwiaa wasted, made en excfrlic-ni display, the exhibitor, a person of do capital beyood his two hands, a tool or two uud some bonce, receiving, W9 hear, co ninny orders that. ha quite established a small business then and there, lloree uaile, exquisitely r/iaiie from Swedish iroa, eouuri and shapely, and better in every respent than any ever seen iv (he country before, drew crowds round the little forge where a troa descendant of Tubal Ci»in hammered and nipped them into existence coram publico. Here s?o -three little industries, each sufficient to beep a family by one man's labor in them, and none requiring any capital— and these are only three out of an aioiosfe endless variety. "We will not touch on the larger industries, employing in Ohristehuvch alone fen, twenty, fifty, a hundred, up to six hundred hands. We only want to show what; can be done if people will but help themselves end help one another, and not despair because the profits are but modest. Many of the humble but quite successful > little manufacturersijepresented -at the Christchurch .Exhibition were admitted to huve been .brought into existence by the hard times and by the hard times alone. One exhibitor in this class, with a true sympathy for others, had written on a card above his unpretending stall, "Full information given to amateurs gratis. Employment for two or three men at good wages." The wish of every exhibitor,: from the highest to the lowest, seemed to be to show what he could do, and to help others to do something too. " Anything for a living. It will never do to hang about doing nothing in these hard times. If one thing won't answer another will." That was the spirit which pervaded the Exhibition, and we are assured by those who saw it that they never witnessed anywhere a more hopeful, helpful sight, or one that produced a ' greater feeling of pride and confidence in the country All the old ideas about local industries not paying, in .fact, were quite knocked on the head by this Exhibition, which was crammed full of the products of local industries that cio pay. One beaming iprpprietpr of as, mall factory— a very, very small one, employing only one pair of bands — was asked how he could possibly make it answer. fHe replied, "I' have to stick at it and knock off beer, but I get along very well." The Exhibition was a lesson to the whole colony, a good-natured, well taught lesson, which must do a great deal of good, and ought fco be widely taken to heart. A Melbourne man has gone home to engage a really firsfc-clasß opera company- capable of Binging in all descriptions oif operas/but more especially in French and English productions. In Paris he will look for about a dozen of the handsomest ballet girls. ■- _

The Laimceston correspondent of the Tasmanian Mail writes :— " There is a remarkable exodus of miners, not only from this, but from the other colonies lo South Africa. The miners are acting on private information, and over a hundred have -left hero within the last week or two. How many have left from other colonies I cannot say, but a few days ago one steamer alone brought 120 from New Zealand to Melbourne, and the steamer Northumberland, which left Melbourne for London the other day, and was going home via the Suez Canal, had so many miners offering for the Cape that the route was changed to suit them, and she took between 100 and 200 miners for Natal. All I can learn is that the goldflelds, which are attracting so much attention, ate 600 miles inland from Natal." Never sincej 1845 has there been known such a disastrous year as was last year for potato growers in England. It is universally admitted that the two longcroppings from the same varieties has been the course ot failure of the crops.