AN IMPERIALIST

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 87, 9 January 1923, Page 5

AN IMPERIALIST

AND A LOYAL CANADIAN DIRECTOR OF TORONTO EXHIBITION Your country is not known to Canadians, and it is not right that an important part of the British Empire should be so much a stranger to its sister Empire citizens. Your scenery, your climate, your wonders, your productiveness, and your manufactures, should be as well known to us as to your brothei s in Australia, and that can only ba accomplished by rubbing shoulders with each other.

Such was tho view expressed io a Dominion reporter last night by Mr. James P. Murray, of Toronto, an associate director of the National Canadian Exhibition. Mr. Murray, who has already spent seven weeks in the Dominion, haj come 10,01X1 miles to renew acquaintance with an old friend, and hopes to double that period before he leaves for his home. He has been a carpet manufacturer on a. largo scale, but retired from business eleven years ago, just before ho reached his sixtieth year. He says he has two “bees in his bonnet" he desires ventilated in the interests of New Zealand, and will see the Prime Minister in regard to them this morning. Toronto Exhibition. Mr. Murray is an associate director of the National Canadian Exhibition, which is not an ephemeral concern, but an institution with world-wido interests. tho aims of .which are not confined to any special, part of the Empire, but embrace it as a whole. This great enterprise is situated on a site of over 40U acres, and comprises large buildings, and every requirement necessary for building purposes. An exhibition is held there every year at the end of August, and throughout the year sectional exhibitions and-otber activities take place in furtherance of the object of the management. MJj Murray’s desire is to see New Zealand erect a building on the site, and he believes that there would bo ”0 difficulty in obtaining 100.000 ft. of space for the purpose, in which coulu be housed everything likely to show Canadians what our country can produce or manufacture likely to find a market in the North American Dominion. . . .- “Your country is no-t Known, as iu were, to Canadians.” remarked Mr. Murray, “and it is nob right that an. important part of the British Empire should be so much a stranger to its sister Empire citizens. Your scenery, your climate, your wonders, your productiveness, and your manufactures should be as well known to us as to your brothers in Australia, and that can only be accomplished by rubbing shoulders, as it were, with each other. I know New Zealand has been generous enough to enact a large measure of preference to us. —a privilege tralia has not yet conceded —but what is the good of that unless you gjvii some ocular demonstration of what .you are and why there is any advantage in that concession. “I do not desire any kudos for my suggestions, as there Is nothing for me to gain personally, but I desire that everything that can bo done to cement tho great relationship should bo tried, and I am convinced that it would be to everyone’s advantage to bring Canada into closer association with every part of the Empire. It is not uncommon to find amongst individuals that when members of a family separate and travel to different parts of the world communication with each other ceases and they become as strangers. I should not like that to happen to the Dominions, but that their relations should become closer and closer as the years rod! on, ana they should regard the Empire as one large family of nations, related by ties of kinship and comradeship, all out for the Empire as a whole and its component parts in particular. I want to enlist the sympathy and support of all New Zealand’s newspapers .in this ficheme of linking up uie Empire, I am confident that where they lead the people will follow. “Aa a practical scheme, added Mr. Murray, “the exhibition I refer to is a wonilorful success. At the last annual exhibition over a million and a half people passed through the turnstiles, and the sectional exhibitions held throughout the year of live stock, trades’ products, art, and applied art, etc., were all worthy of the object in. view. “Yes. I know there are exchanges of teachers and even school inspectors gping on between New Zealand and Canada, but even so Canadian© know as much about New Zealand as your people know about Canada, and that 18 mighty little. If your papers would arrange that their editions wore circulated throughout the larger towns of Canada, where they could be seen bvour people to show them something of your country, your products, your views, and your businesses, a great deal would be accomplished, and I commend tho idea to those in control of yuur daily journals.” - “Why do Canadians refer to the United States as ‘America’ P” Mr. Murray. said in answer to a question: “well that is a matter I have dealt with, before. Forty years ago I called that country the ‘United States of North America.’ or, for short, HJrRona.’ and the people ‘Ursonians,’ and Canada ‘British North America,’ and if that nomenclature were adopted, Canada, which is immensely larger in area, would corr.e into its own. Mr. Murray leaves to-night for tho ' south to continue his inspection of the “pocket edition of'ihe wonders of the world.”