The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1936. THE NEW ZEALAND CENTENARY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 225, 19 June 1936, Page 10

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1936. THE NEW ZEALAND CENTENARY

The Government is to be complimented for the completeness and precision of its statement of policy prepared for the consideration of the National Centennial Committee at its meeting yesterday, and the Minister of Internal Affairs for the manner in which he steered the meeting past the controversial question of the allocation of the money the Government intends to set aside —£230,000 —for the celebrations apart from the cost of the national memorial and the historical surveys. All present agreed that the offer was a generous one. Wellington argues, however, that the proportion allotted to the exhibition is inadequate: so inadequate, in the Mayor’s judgment, that it seems hardly worth while going on with the project. As the matter now stands the Government is to reconsider the proportionate allocation of the money after-it has been discussed by a Dominion conference of representatives of the provincial centennial organisations. The question of peculiar interest to Wellington is, of course, that of the exhibition. The City Council had proposed an exhibition company with a capital of £300,000, of which it suggests £150,000 should be provided by the Government —£100,000 as a gift, and £50,000 as purchase money ’ for shares in the company —leaving £150,000 to be raised by the sale of shares to the public. The Government’s offer falls £75,000 short of the council’s expectations. It proposes to make a grant of £50,000 (provided at least £lOO,OOO is raised from shareholders) and to lend £25,000 free of interest: a total of £75,000. At the meeting yesterday Mr. Hislop asked for a minimum of £125,000, but as that would be exactly half of the total proposed to be spent by the Government on the celebrations, it is likely that considerable opposition would be raised by other centres. The Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs, Mr. J. W. Heenan, contended that the exhibition should not be the focal point of the national centenary celebrations. That, he said, was the attitude adopted in Victoria two years ago, and in South Australia this year. There the exhibitions were confined to manufacturers’ displays. If we accept this view then an exhibition on a modest scale could be organised with the resources at present in sight. But that was not the original idea. It has long been in the public mind, even before the national centenary loomed up, that Wellington sooner or later should have an international exhibition on a scale worthy of the capital city. The proximity of the centennial celebrations suggested that the one could be dove-tailed into the other. Again, the celebrations in other centres will be over and done with in a short time. The exhibition should run for several months, according to the success of the show and the patronage it receives. But such a result could not be expected from a small exhibition with a limited field of variety and entertainment. If the thing is worth doing it is worth doing well.

But before going any further it might be as well to ascertain whether there is enough public enthusiasm for a large-scale exhibition to warrant the confident assumption that £lOO,OOO can be raised to satisfy the Government’s condition in respect of its offer to find £75,000. The Dunedin people raised almost that sum themselves with nothing more tangible in the shape of assistance from the Government than a promise to help. Then they received a grant of' £50,000, and loans amounting to £40.000 which were repaid before the exhibition closed. If the Wellington people aim to go one better than Dunedin, greater enterprise and a more robust spirit of independence should be in evidence.