EXHIBITION FOR AUCKLAND

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27564, 22 January 1955, Page 6

EXHIBITION FOR AUCKLAND

Suggestion Made To City Council CHRISTCHURCH PLANS RECALLED

Sir Ernest Andrews, who was chairman of the interim directorate for the proposed Christchurch exhibition, thinks the directors should be called together again to reconsider the proposal to hold an exhibition in Christchurch. Sir Ernest Andrews was invited to comment on a report that the Auckland City Council had this week tacitly approved the holding of a South Seas international exhibition in Auckland. When sufficient information is to hand the matter will be brought before the council formally. A suggestion that, an exhibition might be staged at Western Springs stadium to coincide with the opening of the harbour bridge, was made to the council meeting by Mr W. Butler, who said that by holding an exhibition at the stadium it could be developed so that the Olympic Games could be held there if they were allotted to Auckland at some time in the future. Mr S. Howard Hunter said he had privately made a suggestion along these fines, but Christchurch had agreed that it should hold any such exhibition. Scheme Being Prepared The Auckland Public Relations Office had been working since last August on proposals for a South Seas exhibition at Western Springs, said the public relations officer (Mr G. E. Gair) on Thursday. There was every intention that a concrete scheme would be placed before the management committee of the Public Relations Office shortly. Mr Gair said that about four years were required to plan and arrange such an exhibition, and 1959-60 appeared to be the most appropriate time to hold it. That date did not clash with any major international event overseas.

“From Auckland’s point of view,” said Mr Gair, “that time would be most appropriate. It will be Auckland’s 120th birthday, we will have the harbour bridge, our population will have grown to more than 400,000, Auckland will have its first structure on skyscraper lines (the new City Council building), and we might even have an international airport.” In March, 1952, the interim directors of the proposed Christchurch exhibition decided that “the time is not opportune to hold an exhibition, and that the proposal be allowed to lapse in the meantime.” At that 'meeting Sir Ernest Andrews reported that the Prime Minister, Mr Holland, had said in discussions that the time was not opportune for the holding of an exhibition in view of the unsettled world situation.

Expressing the view last evening that the directors should be now called together again, Sir Ernest Andrews said that he thought the time was now very much more opportune for the holding of an exhibition. When the Prime Minister had urged that the time was not opportune it had been understood that Christchurch had a prior claim to hold an exhibition when times were again more favourable, and that position still stood. Other centres had had exhibitions since Christchurch, said Sir Ernest Andrews.