The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1906. THE EXHIBITION

New Zealand Tablet, 1 November 1906, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1906 . THE EXHIBITION

fHRISTCHURCH' is festive to-day- And all New Zealand is with it by proxy. For the opening of , the International -Exhibition this morning is no mere- local event;- it is an historical iiwident of. national- importance. It was a bold and vigorous undertaking' r fpr .a young- nation far out on the further rim^, of the world. t^-But (a*s the Italian pfoverb saith) 'a telaardita Dio. manda'fil filo ' — heaven, iij: in such matters pn Jihe side of tiie' Jbdld and "self-r^f^nt. The broad and enterprising lines on" which—for a } country so small and remote from. the great world-oegftes— the Exhibition has been planh&i',"' deserve, aiwr we oMeve will command, success. It -starts to-day under, "happy auspices, and, besides its educational" and- commercial value, it will draw - New Zealand and its people 1 ' into closer touch with the comity of the nations. , % ■ . .. • The international exhibition- isa product of tb£ ! nineteenth century v But it did not spring^ up v at" a- bouna, as . Minerva -is fabled to have sprung, motherleSs* and:' in her full panoply of aimor,* fromHhe brain ofs Jove. Like Top'sy, in * Uncle Tom's Cabin ', it • grWeif'V Btit ' the roots of its growth stretched deep" and thriis't their further tendrils " into medieval times.. The 5 gre'&t'vJaifs of those days were embryonic international exhibitions. Such, for instance, .were the .greStT annual/internationalfairs of Ohampagnes.anid,' Brie" in. France, of Leipzig and the two Frankforts in Germany, and of Winchester and Stourbridge in England. In the ' Vision of Peres the Plowman', Covetousness says: '- • ".;-. ,' ' To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair ' — whioh lasted sixteen" days". The Stourbridge annual fair or selling exhibition lasted for' an 5 entire* month* ainU was famed all over Europe. Gibb'ms, in\ his ' Industrial England', tells how Genoese and; Venetian merchants (or vending exhibitors, as we, may I call them) flocked thither with the. silk's, velvets, cottons, and' precious stones of the East; Flemings foregathered'" there with the fine linens and cloths of their c'biin'try ; 'Frenchmen .and' Spaniards with their wines ; Norwegians with . their tar and " pitch ; the ; mighty , traders of the Hahse towns exposed for sale furs and amtier for the' rich, iron and copper for the farmers', flax for their wives"; \ while homely fustian buckram, wax, herrings, and' . caiiivas mingled, incongruously in ' their booths . with strange, faroff Eastern spices arid ornaments. And "in refcuW ~the English' farmers— or ' traders on their- behalf-^afrled to the fair hundreds of huge woolsacT.es; wherewith to 7 clothe the" nations of Europe; or barley for "the Flemish breweries, with corn and horses and cattle also. Lead

was brought from the mines of Derbyshire, and tin from Cornwall. . . All these wares were, as at Winchester, exposed in stalls and tents in long streets, some named after "the various nations' that congregated there, and others after the.- kind of .goods on sale.' We have here, in. those ; old-time fairs, all the essentials of the international exhibition,' together with the rude beginnings of the ' sections ' and 'international bays' that form such attractive features of the great exposition that opens in Chris tchurph to-day.

The old-style international fair, with its tents and booths and regiments^ of. packhorses, is as dead as the tourney -and the morris-dance. But its passing was merely the- transformation of . the ugly caterpillar and the unattractive pupa into glorious butterfly. The loc«£l show and the national exhibition were the two stages by which the great medieval fair was metamorphosed into the splenddis of the modern 'international exhibition. 1 England led the way with the world-exposi-tion ; -France and the United: States have surpassed all others in the extent and - magnificence of its setting. The first of the long series was opened in London on May-day, 1851. Fifteen thousand exhibitors exposed their wares'; over six million visitors came to see; and this first international exhibition was "one of the rare instances in which, these colossal undertakings resulted in a direct financial . profit. " Thereafter, the modern international fair ' crescebat eundo '— it gathered volume and interest as the years went on. Here is a .'-brief table which gives a conspectus of a few principal exhibitions from the point of view of a mere count of heads :—: — _ v s

Our New Zealand International Exhibition pales before the vastness of those crowning triumphs of the world-fair. But bigness "Ifcnd smallness" are relative terms. Our Exhibition was originated to suit the means, the number, and the commercial requirements" of the people whpm.it is intended to serve. For a population of under a million souls, tens of thousands of miles away from the world's great throbbing life-centres, it represents a vast and creditable effort. And we -have no doubt that the services it will render to our country will be. commensurate with the hopes and intentions of its promoters. .

Year. 1862 1867 1876 1876 1893 1900 1904 . Place. South Kensington Paris Philadelphia Paris Chicago Paris St. Louis Exhibitors. 28,653 50,226 40,000 - 80,000 75J531 Visitors. 6~211,103 10,200,000 9,910^66 16,032,725 27,529,401 48,130,301 14,000,000