AUCKLAND EXHIBITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 98, 18 April 1914, Page 6

AUCKLAND EXHIBITION.

[Pbb Press Association.] Auckland, April 17. The Auckland; Exhibition closes tomorrow. Discussing the financial side of the institution, to-day, Mr Elliott,, the president of the executive, said "The Exhibition has been a success. It is at present impossible to form more than an approximate idea of what the balance-sheet will indicate, but we are going to show a bigger profit than has been shown by an\ other exhibition previously held in Australasia. •'Just what a set-baqk the epidemic meant to us we never allowed the public to know, but at one time it looked as if we would not survive tin check we received. Intending exhibitors all over New Zealand, in Australia, and in Great Britain wrote or cabled cancelling their applicationfor space. They all thought that the epidemic meant the end of tin exhibition. That is one reason why there were so many small stalls and small stallholders. We had to largely remodel the original scheme to meet this contingency. The attendant also during December and January was greatly affected by the fear of the epidemic. On the top of the epidemic came the general strike, and just lioav much trouble it entailed will be still fresh in the public mind.' ; Mr Elliott's 'announcement of u satisfactory profit has not been received with, any enthusiasm by the large number of stallholders who purchased selling rights. Almost all of them have lost money. Some are 1 only a few pounds out, but quite a number have lost some hundreds, while one man, at least, who is interested ii> Wonderland, as well as the Exhibition, estimates his loss at £3OOO or £4OOO. The Exhibition will close with a total attendance of between 800,000 and 900,000 instead of the expejeted two millions.