DUNEDIN EXHIBITION. LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE. Dunedin, March 21.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 353, 23 March 1889, Page 5

DUNEDIN EXHIBITION. LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE. Dunedin, March 21.

Savi: for an occasional showei , the weather was veiy favourable for the important ceremonial of yesterday. Close holiday was obsened and the city was en fete. A procession computing the trades and friendly societies, local bodies and volunteeis, formed in the triangle, and after parading Princesstreet from the Octagon, marched to the Exhibition site, where the stone was laid with Masonic rites. The only speeches weie delivered by the President of the Exhibition Company, Mr Roberta, and His Excellenc}'' ; but neither rose to the level of the occasion. The Exhibition Commissioners piesented His Kxcellencj' with a mallet O£ New Zealand woods suitably inscribed. Sir William Jer\ois, in (he course of his address, said : " Since I came here last, two >cars ago, a change has come over Dunedin which does one good to witness. You, Mr President, have resuscitated my statement, made during that visit, that the depression had leached its lowest point, and prosperity would soon return. 1 need not say thit 1 am most gad, not only for the take ot my leputation as a prophet (1 u:ghter), bi.t for the take of New Zealand b welfaie, that it was absolutely light. (Applause) This must be a most extraordinary Exhibition if io can make Otago moie attractive than Nature has made it. (Applause.) The extremities certainly enjoy a most favoured position. There is Auckland, with its volcanic district, in direct communication with Sydney ; the Sounds in direct communication with Melbourne ; then Wellington, as the central place of New Zealand, has exceptional advantages, and Canterbury, as the granary of New Zealand, has the privilege of the feeding of all. (Laughter.) But the playgrounds of Now Zealand are merely the North and South of the country. I am glad to learn that a well-organised tourists' court is to be a main feature of tho Exhibition, and the advantages of New Zealand tor play as w ell as for work are to be fully set iorth. But. apart from that, the present time seems to me to be tho most litting one for the Exhibition. We all know what has happened acio^i the water?. The Australian drought is a eeiious matter, but an additional con-ideration is that a great number ot New Zealandeis weie attiactcd over there during the past year, and many of them are likely to be in a bad way and to return. (Hear.) The whole colony is, as the President has told us, uniting to make this Exhibition enterprise successful, and tho entire absence of provincial jealousy is a most pleasing feature. (Applause.) That it will benefit Dunedin, the name of whose chief magistrate nightly appears in the list ot vice-presidents, nobody will doubt ; but it is in tho trust that it will benefit the colony at large that I most heartily and sinceiely wi&h it all success. The streets were lined wibh people, and everything passed off satisfactory.