Industries Exhibition.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17293, 3 November 1921, Page 6

Industries Exhibition.

Cheered by the success attending the New Zealand Industries Exhibition in Wellington, a number of the exhibitors thereat have endowed a proposal that there should be every year, in each of the four centres, an exhibition of articles made in New Zealand, and that once every four years an exhibition on a Dominion scale should be held in the centre in which the Dominion Executive of the Industrial Corporation is located in that year. This decision is gratifying that the manufacturers in the Dominion have seen the wisdom of abandoning their too modest attitude, and of letting the public, whose support they are presumably desirous of securing, know what they are doing. Of late years one of the chief obstacles to the extension of local industries has been the apparently unconquerable shyness of the manufacturers, many of whom could scarcely seem more anxious, not to attract attention to their wares, if the latter had heen bombs, designed far the furtherance of the "social revolution" or the destruction of the offioes of newspapers opposed to ai protectionist tariff. There was a time not many years ago, before the Industrial Association took up this quaintly unbusiness-like attitude, when "Made-in-New-Zealand" exhibitions were held |n Christohurch, and when many of the leading shops made an annual display of, goods manufactured mostly in Chiiitchurch, and all in the Dominion. Considering the interest that used to be taken in these displays, it is difficult to believe that they were wholly resultless in the matter of increasing tne public demand for the goods thus displayed. There iB, if the members of the Industrial Association would only believe it, a very considerable section of the public, probably a majority of it, which would sooner buy New Zealand-made goods if it could get them, or knew of their existence, than articles produced abroad. The time when "local industry" was a term of derision or contempt has passed, and numbers of people now know that in some lines Dominion-made articles turo of aa goo 4 quality as need be desired', and, in a few instances, as good aa anything of the sort l produced anywhere. The action of the manuj faoturers in dropping the annual displays to which we have referred was, therefore, shortsighted in the extreme. The excuse for doing so. we believe, was that it cost money to make the displays, but it is difficult to believe that, in the long run,' the expenditure was not indirectly, if not directly, reproductive. The New Zealand manuiiow appear to have realised that it pay them to advertise their wares, even though doing so involves some expense. From their point of view it is the more desirable that they should do so, because British' manufacturers, with commendable enterprise, propose to send a floating exhibition of goods round the Empire. In course of time the ship will, no doubt, reach New Zealand, and we shall' be able to see for ourselves what British manufacturers can do to pysh their businesses. It will be just as well for local industries, if those in charge of them, before this happens, go to Bome trouble to let the New Zealand public see the progress that manufacturing enterprise is making. . Forestry and Settlement In discussing, the other day, the amendments made by the Lands Committee in, the Forests Bill, we expressed regret that the Committee should have Bhown such little appreciation of the necessity for regarding our forests as "something "more than trees to be cleared away " as required" as so to mutilate thei Bill as to rob it of some of its most useful provisions. We welcome, therefore, a vigorous article in the "Dominion which supports to the full the attitude we took up regarding the emasculation of one of the most important measures that has been put bofore Parliament for a .long time. Our contemporary emphasises the fact that "tlhe Forests Bill, "in the state to which it is meantime "reduoed, falls far short of offering an ! " assurance that an end will be made l " of the conditions in whioh the remain-

" ing forest wealth of the Dominion m " still being wasted and destroyed. It goes on to point out that one result of the Lands Committee's work "clearly '' is to perpetuate the conditions of land " control in which hundreds of thou- " sands of acres of productive land in "the Dominion —about thirty thousand "acres per year in recent years —havo " been reduoed to a condition in whicfti "they will produce nothing." The Bill originally provided for the provisional reservation of areas of land as State forests, subject to the condition that at any time within five years of such provisional reservation it may bo revoked, wholly or in part, by proclamation. But if no such revoking proclamation were made within five years the area affected passed from the condition of a provisional to that of a permanent State forest, and a resolution by both Houses of Parliament would be required to abolish that reservation. These valuable clauses were struck out by the Lands Committee in favour of one Wfhich provides that any provisional State forest shall remain eo only until it is declared to bo needed for settlement) purposes, in wfhich event the reservation may be lifted by Order-in-Council. The extension of productive land settlement is admittedly the first and greatest need of a country such as New Zealand, but the furtherance of that policy must bo conditioned by other considerations than the mere extension of the area settled, and where the progress of settlement clashes with the conservation of forest in areas in whiah forest, under proper conditions, would prove the most productive crop that the land can bear, progress must be made with caution. For when once the forest is cleared, the deed is irrevocable, even if it is proved thait its destruction was a grievous mistake, as has often been proved in the history of settlement in the Dominion. As our contemporary remarks, "it is under the administra"tion of the Lands Department, aM " in the ordinary course of land settle- " meat, that these great areas have "reverted to scrub and useless waste," ana unless the House and the Council demand the reinstatement of the provisions that have been struck out of the Bill, the same unintelligent procedure will be perpetuated. For the Minister of Lands made it quite olear that the Lands Department was to be the deciding factor as to the use of any lamd. He staged definitely that land tlhat was ''likely to be useful for "forestry," and was not "immediately "required for settlement," was placed under a provisional reservation, but " the Minister of Land's had the right "to lift this reservation at any time "if the land were wanted for settle- " ment." State forests, he added, were absolutely under the control of the Forestry Department. But that applies only to State forests already proclaimed ag such; there is at present no provision for any increase in the- area of such forest. It is true that aqy difference of opinion between the Lands and Forestry Departments as to the use which should be made of a provisional forest, is to be settled by Cabinet, but this trifling safeguard does not alter the fact that the Bill as it now stands "raises no obstacle " worth mentioning to the irreparable "blunder of converting valuable pro- " ductive forests into barren wastes." If it is allowed to pass in its present shape, any hope s that the Dominion is on the eve of a rational forestry policy may be dismissed., and the Forest Service may as well be disbanded. If the Forestry League wishes to justify itg existence it will without delay make a vigorous effort to prevent such a disaster. Land Tax. The suggestion which we mad© yesterday, that the Government should accept promissory notes for the land tax due by those taxpayers who cannot take advantage of the proposed 10 per cent, rebate for cash, was put before the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives by Mr Lysnar yesterday afternoon. Mr Lysnar mentioned the arrangement made last summer, under which promissory notes were accepted for part of the income tax. The Prime Minister's reply was sympathetic, but he said that the financial conditions had changed. Promissory notes were not much use to the Department unless the banks were able to discount them, and there was ai limit to the advances the Bank of New Zealand could make. As we pointed out yesterday, there is a difference between land tax and income tax whioh is all in favour of the Government's offering the utmost amount of accommodation that it can contrive—the land tax is a first charge on the land, and the existence of the land is the most perfect security conceivable. We mention this because it is possible that the antiagrarian element in the Houle and in the country may represent that if our proposal were adapted some extra privilege was being granted to land-owners. So far as the Government is concerned, the question of security cannot arbo. The difficulty that Mr Massey sees is the difficulty of obtaining finance from the Bank, but this difficulty ought not to be insuperable. The most important part of the Prime Minister's statement is his intimation that the Government would, not inflict hardship on anybody if it could be helped, and the Department would do the best it could. Of course, the Government could easily enough obtain the land tax if it chose to press the taxpayer, obtain judgment, and sell him up, but although such a proceeding might give immediate pleasure to those who regard the prnin on the land as a rascal whose difficulties are their opportunity, the ultimate result would be anything but good for the country. The elaborate precautions—involving a high'rate for the accommodation —which the Department insisted upon last summer in connexion with income tax are hardly neoessary in the case of land-tax, be-

cause there is no chance that the tax will not be recovered. It will be a great advantage not only to the payers of land tax, but to the country generally, if the Government makes arrangemente for the deferring of payment in the really necessitous cases, which everyone knows ax© pretty numerous.

When the last mail left England publicity was being given to a little dispute between Lord Leverluilme, of Sunlight soap fame, and Sir "William Orpen, on the subject of a portrait of the soap magnate painted by the latter. It appears that Lord Leverhutme entrusted Sir William with a commission for a portrait of his Lordship in mayoral robes to be hung in Bolton Town Hall, having previously received a "quotation" from the painter who wrote:— "My prices are as follows: Head and shoulders £IOOO, half or three-quarter length £ISOO, full length £2000." Lord 'Leverhulmo wished for a "full length" picture, but Sir William Orpen said a "sitting-down" portrait would be better, and so it was painted. No stipulation was made as to whether the "sittingdown" picture was to be regarded as a "full-length" or "three-quarter length," but Sir William sent in a bill for 2000 guineas. Lord Leverhulme then produced the frame-maker's bill to show that the actual size of the canvas was only 75 inches by 55 inches, and not "about 85 inches by 55 inches" as stated by the artist, who remarked "if you consider the picture a J or J length and wish to pay for it as such, let it be so." His Lordship then suggested that his friend Sir David Murray, who had recommended him to Sir William Orpen should be asked to decide the matter, or " if you wou|d prefer it I would be pleased to send you a cheque for 1500 guineas and so end the matter."

Under tho heading "Relativity in Art" tho "Morning Post" dealt with the matter in its editorial columns. The world, it remarked, would await with intense interest the verdict of Sir David Murray, "for it is clear" said the "Post," "that we are on the eve of a new era in criticism. Here we have all been wondering, worrying, quarrelling about art standards and art values, and now comes Lord Leverhulme with a new criterion which bursts on a weary world like a ray of sunlight. It may perhaps be described as the quantitative method. Sir William Orpen has already tumbled 'to its potentialities. 'The portrait of Lord Leverhulme,' he saysj 'is a very big canvas, and, to say nothing of my artistio labours, there is just as much paint and varnish used in it as if he had been standing and not sitting.' We can see that a duly authenticated certificate giving the precise amount of paint and varnish expended will now accompany every canvas. Art will now be measured in the manner of Savilo-row." It is all rather startling, but after all he who pays the piper calls the tune, though it is to be hoped that this aspect of the question will not unduly . affect the mind of the suggested arbitrator.

A cable • message published a day °r two ago stated, on the authority of the Geneva correspondent of the London "Observer," that owing to the abnormal summer and the absence of snow the Alp 9 were giving up the bodies of climbers killed in 1865 during the first ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper. Either the correspondent has made a mistake or the message suffered in transmission. Four of the party of seven who completed the ascent on that tragio day in July, fifty-six years ago, wera killed, but the bodies of three of them, who had fallen nearly 4000 feet, were discovered next morning by Whymper and other searchers and were buried in the churchyard at Zermatt. It is possible that it is the body of the fourth victim, Lord Francis Douglas, a lad of 19, which has been given up by the Matterhorn glacier.

The party which, conquered the great mountain —it was Mr Whymper's ninth attempt—consisted of three guides Croz, Peter Taugwalder, and his son, Messrs Hadow, Hudson, and Whymper, and Lord Francis Douglas. The accident occurred at a difficult stage of the descent. Croz was leading, then followed Hadow, Hudson, and Lord Francis, with old Taugwalder next, followed by Whymper and the young Taugwalder. Whymper, in his graphic, story of the disaster, says that as far as he could see, Croz, who had teen helping Hadow hy actually placing his feet in their proper positions, was turning round to go down ft step or two himself, when Hadow slipped and fell against him and knocked him over. In a moment the two men were rapidly slipping downwards followed by Hudson and Douglas who had been dragged from their feet. Whympe* and Taugwalder braced them to withstand the strain but the rope broke just below the guide. "For a few seconds wo saw our unfortunate companions sliding downwards on their "backs, and spreading out their hands endeavouring to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to precipico on to the Matterhorn glacier below." The accident so unnerved the guides that for two hours Whymper expected to share the fate of his companions. Readers of Mark Twain's "A Tramp Abroad" will remember his quotation of a description by a French writer of the yielding up by a Mont Blano glacier, in 1861 of the remains of victims of an accident which had occurred on the mountain in 1820, threa guides being swept by an avalanche into a crevasse. The remains were identified by a survivor whoße life had been, preserved through his alpenstock bridging th© orevasse and thus preventing him from sharing the fato of his comrades.

Members of the Actors' Federation of Australia can now breathe easily and sleep safely. No longer may they, nor their wives and children, be assaulted or intimidated by their employers, nor the more-to-b9-dreaded stago manager; they are freed from perpetual surveillance, and from the theft or concealment of their clothes and boots, by the same tyrants, who may also no longer express their opinions of their employees in "language." For over the rank and file of tho theatrical world — a phrase in whidli one must include all "stars," both male and female —the Arbitration Court has thrown tho mantle of its protection, in an award which, besides fixing rates of pay and conditions of work,*lays it down that employers must not

(a) Use violence or intimidate an employee, Ihis wife, or children, or injure lus property; (b) persistently follow any employee about from place to place; (c) hido his clothes or other property own-

cd or used by him, or deprive him or hinder him in the use thereof: (d) watch or beset, the house or other place where suoit employee resides or happens to be, or tlio npproncfli to such house or place; (e) use any threatening, abusive, obscene, indecent, or insisting words towards any employee, his wife, or children.

One litre and learns. Hitherto we never dreamed that the members of "the profession" were subjected to such treatment as that from wthich the Court lias now safeguarded them. Actors and actresses have always seemed a rather cheerful lot, on the whole, but if these provisions were needed it is clear thnt their gaiety has teen forced, and that in rcalitv they went in constant fenr of afwault or robbery or abuse by their employers. An alternative theory is that the award, so far as these provisions are concerned, is a piece of tank absurdity, designed, one might almost believe, to bring till© Arbitration system into contempt.