The Dunedin Exhibition.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18681, 3 May 1926, Page 6

The Dunedin Exhibition.

In spite of the rain Dunedin seems to have been a very happy place on Saturday. It had the Prime Minister there to hand over the signed and receipted deeds for its loan of £55,000, and could hardly help feeling a little excited over the warm messages of congratulation from so many great and distinguished people. It is not every day that. brings, or every city that deserves, messages from his Majesty the King, from the Secretary of State for the Dominions, and from the Prime Ministers of such important British communities as Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia. It is a quite astonishing fact that a city whoso population has not yet reached a hundred thousand should have been able to stage an Exhibition big enough, and attractive enough, and especially shrewdly enough managed, to draw over three million visitors in a single summer. The Prime Minister "rightly called this a striking proof of " bold " and prudent finance," but there was of course a good deal more than financial boldness behind the Exhibition, There was Provincial, Dominion, and even Imperial imagination, and the Directors are quite entitled to claim that " each of the overseas Commis"sioners will now be an ambassador " and propagandist for New Zealand." The whole scheme showed such broad vision, such high courage, such fearless enterprise, that not to rejoice with Dunedin would be unpardonable. And yet it is impossible not to wonder at the same time whether the influence of'such functions and displays is not exaggerated. There is no question at all about the advantage of the Dunedin Exhibition to Dunedin, but when Dunedin says that the object of the Exhibition was not parochial, that it was held not so much for Dunedin as for the Dominion, it is reasonable to ask just how much it has done for the Dominion, or would or could have done if its success had been even more remarkablo than it actually was. After all the chief way of helping this Dominion—we do not say it is the only way—is to stimulate primary production, and it is only in a comparatively small and indirect way that any Exhibition can do that. The Exhibition did certainly promote national pride and the confidence, a very valuable national asset, that comes of this,

and it has shown also, perhaps more dramatically than the Dominion has ever been shown before, what any ' community can do if it believes in itself and boldly helps itself. But . now that the tumult and the shouting are over it is just as well to face the other fact that some of the things , which the promoters said the Exhibition would do are quite out of the possible range of its influence, and that so far as its international influence was concerned it was not nearly enough to make " ambassadors" of the overseas Commissioners. As wc are thinking now of the future and not of the past, we cannot help saying that before such an enterprise is undertaken again the Province that is considering the step should not paint too glowing a picture of the possibilities of any Exhibition over and above its parochial advantages and its interest as a carnival and splendid show. That is to say, the very triumph of Dunedin, while it warms the blood a little and fires the material imagination, should teach us at the same time that the miracle of get ling three million people through a narrow gate in five months is not necessarily the same thing as making all those people more capable citizens.