A NATION MARCHES FORWARD

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20956, 8 November 1939, Page 10

A NATION MARCHES FORWARD

FIRST CENTURY OF PROGRESS CLOSES Centennial Exhibition Officially Opened SIX MONTHS OF CELEBRATIONS BEGIN Typifying the wonderful progress of a small nation in the short space of 100 years New Zealand’s Centennial Exhibition was officially opened by the Governor-General, Lord Galway, at Wellington today. Built on the most ambitious scale ever attempted in the Southern Hemisphere, the huge exposition, which covers nearly 60 acres of land, serves to cast the mind back down the pathway of the years to the time when the pioneers from the Mother Country sought to carve a new destiny from a bush-clad wilderness, and it lays before the world the success that has been achieved through their indomitable spirit as they turned this new*land into the thriving garden of the Pacific, Today’s opening ceremony, which marks the start of six months’ celebration of the 100th anniversary of New Zealand’s inclusion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, also marks the culmination of years of work that has grown in intensity during the last few months. In spite of the uncertainty engendered by the war, acute financial problems and many other adverse conditions, the Government and the private exhibitors have continued their work with the same enthusiasm and determination of purpose which actuated the early pioneers and they have succeeded in forming a composite picture finer than any previously seen in the Dominion. Not only has the exhibition turned the clock back for a century, but it has also dipped into the future with its modernistic designs and displays, in which the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Fiji and other parts of the Empire have pooled their resources with those of New Zealand in a splendid representation of progress.