AN APPEAL TO TRADES PEOPLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9137, 13 July 1908, Page 4

AN APPEAL TO TRADES PEOPLE.

The General Committee of the Master ton A. and P. Association decided, at its meeting on Saturday last, on the suggestion ot' Mr A. G. Pilmer, to make a systematic canvas among residents of the town, and particularly among tradespeople, for new members. It was slated at the meeting that there was a fair number of tradesmen in the town who were not members of the Association. Now, if there is one section of this community more than another, excepting, perhaps, farmers, who should support the Association, it is the tradespeople. The Executive Committee of the Association has done Herculean work lately to lift the Show into the very front of Dominion agricultural arid pastoral exhibitions, and it must be admitted that they have succeeded admirably up to the present. Tiien the fact that the sum of about £I,OOO has already been sunscribed with wnirlwind spontaneity by almost solely the rural population towards the tnirchnse of the Solway Showgrounds, should imbue sufficient patriotism into tradesmen who are non-members to induce them to afford the small sum of £1 per year, the subscription fee of the Association. They receive in ••eturn substantial direct benefits in privileges, besides reaping a proportion of the harvest the town enjoys as a result of the Show and Ram Fair being held. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the indirect importance of a strong Show! to ! any town —it is known to everyone what the Manawatu Show has done for Palmerston North. It might, however, bo as well to draw the attention of the public of Masterton to the important fact

that there has just been a very large increase of South Wairarapft' members to the Masterton Association, and a reciprocal movement from this end of the Valley, which enjoys the material benefits of the Show, would be very appropriate at the present time.