People’s Day

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26266, 10 November 1950, Page 6

People’s Day

People's Day at the show is a Canterbury institution. The population really mixes. countryfolk, older people, and children—especially children—are in evidence at the show on People’s Day. People who spend their lives in the open air mix with men and women whose daily work is inside four walls and under a roof. Persons who serve the community in manifold ways—in commerce, local body and government institutions—join with those they serve. In common, a day out is sought, spent and enjoyed; and individuals appreciate it as their natures and preferences dictate. But even those whose appreciation is merely superficial cannot miss the theme of the occasion—the significance of the pastoral and agricultural industries of province and country. People’s Day at the show—with everybody there —expresses in pleasant and real ways the community’s ultimate dependence for its prosperity upon the produce of the land. This year’s show is, of course, a special one, marking a special occasion. How closely Canterbury’s progress in its first hundred years has been tied to its primary industries needs no emphasis. Consequently, all will concede to the Royal Canterbury Centennial Show a proud place among the province’s centennial celebrations. Fittingly, it is the biggest Royal show ever held, both for numbers of exhibits and breeds of stock. Though Canterbury exhibits are more numerous than those from elsewhere, many other parts of New Zealand are well represented in quantity and quality. The section of the show devoted to machinery exhibits, many of them invented and made in Canterbury, is of record size. As a practical display of machinery’s everincreasing uses in farming it is perhaps more symbolic of the next hundred years than the last. But the real significance of the show is that it expresses in miniature the progress and development of the primary industries and emphasises to all their importance to the economy of the province and the Dominion. This is the solid, substantial backing for the holiday atmosphere of celebration in which most people will visit the show on People’s Day.