DUNEDIN EXHIBITION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 3

DUNEDIN EXHIBITION

A STRANGER'S APPRECIATION

DR. KATZ IN" THE "VOSSISCHE

ZEITUNG."

(l-rom Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 4th May.

Among the numerous articles contributed to German and Austrian newspapers by Dr. Richard Katz, who has been visiting the Southern Dominions, is one on the Duncdin . Exhibition. A translation of this, supplied by Mr. H. E. L. Priday, is of interest as showing the impression the' industrial efforts of New Zealand have made on a visitor from Central Europe. The article appears in the Berlin "Vossische Zeitung." "What the industrious New Zealander has done," says Dr. Katz, "is to provide a neat and worthy provincial exhibition which has the advantage of being situated in a country which is of great interest to the tourist. In a country, at any rate/which is accessible only to a really well-to-do tourist, for t1.3 out and return journey from Berlin is scarcely to be done under 6000 marks, for which the enthusiastic exhibition fiend may havp the pleasure of a double forty days' sea voyage round the world. It is really on' account of this extreme distance that Dunedin has no European visitors, and . that the Americans are only there in small numbers. The visitors consist chiefly of tho citizens of Dunedin, of the neighbouring towns, and of the North Island of New Zealand. From Wellington alone a large and well-packed steamer makes tho trip here daily. New Zealand has still her spring (her December is like our May), and the beautiful town of Dunedin, surrounded by sea and hills, ; has becorno the general travelling aim of the whole Dominion. During weekends the whole of Christchurch does the seven-hour journey her in special trains, but that is comprehensible to anyone who has experienced the tediousness of that' modern 'town of straight lines' and has lost his way in the uniform squares of her streets. \ ONE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBIT. "The Dunedin Exhibition is very comfortably built of concrete and wood, and corresponds in size and extent to the Frankfurt Messe (one of the large yearly exhibitions in Germany). Its most interesting object lesson is the picture it affords of the highly-developed farming industry of New Zealand, her butter and cheese production, the value • and extent of her timber supplies (which are shown here as used for all k: :ids, of purposes), and her sheep farming and fruit growing.; Yet as all these . products aro taken by the English market it possesses scarcely any practical use for the German visitor. Industrially New Zealand is still but little devel- ' oped, for English capital does not flow < in very freely, being surely frightened away by the New Zealand scale of wages, which are more than 200 per cent, higher than those ruling in Europe. "The English industrial firms which are exhibiting in Dunedin certainly do so more for prestigo than on account of business, and the same reason may have induced Canada to install an interesting little pavilion. Outside this sphere and a few Australian firms, one finds only one single '.international' exhibitor, a Swiss; watchmaker. Nine-, tenths of the 600 ror so ordinary and tastefully-arranged stands are occupied by New Zealand export and commercial firms,, which take up the place and position of retail businesses. THE NEW ZEALANDER AND ART. "The English Government has.con-,, tributed copies of the Crown Jewels, war memorials, and . statistics. The proudest object of the Exhibition is a relief map of the earth, on which a)l -the British possessions'are marked in red. Tiny steamers voyage to and fro on the English sea routes from colony to colony, from Dominion to Dominion, and give tho far-away New Zealander a clear impression of the world-wide commerce of the Motherland. "An 'International Art Exhibition' is attached to the Exhibition to which the English and Australian galleries have sent along numbers of worthy old masters, while the French, likewise invited to exhibit, satisfy the customary colonial fogginess with laughing maidens in orange light, rose-complexiohed ladies, studies of themude, and other such agreeable things which no New Zealander would think of hanging within the sacred precincts of his own home. FIRST PROPAGANDA EFFORT. "In Europe one still appears to have no true picture of this prosaic industrious Dominion which advertises herself much less than Australia, but which,on that account works much more energetically than the latter, and which to-day can show the highest production as well as the highest import figure per ... head of population in the world. The ' 'Exhibition' in Dunedin is certainly her first real propaganda effort. If one set beside this the measure of the possibilities of the country (thinking neither. , of Wembley nor of Leipzig) he will find it no inconsiderable one." 85, Fleet street." Bachelors who live by themselves in four or five rooms have been attacked by the president of the Insorporated Society of Auctioneers, who owns considerable property in the West End. "Marry or get out" is his ultimatum, which he applies to admirals, men in the diplomatic service, and others who have about • £10,000 a year to spend. "Where these old cronies once lived," he.says, "there are now beautiful cretonnes and beautiful furniture, instead of dirty curtains and dirty furniture." The special providence which is said to take care of drunkards is assisted in Amsterdam by a society founded for the protection of the intoxicated. The society works on business lines, and has a tariff of charges. A reveller who has lost control of his legs is led home for'7%d.. If "• unable to walk, he can be conveyed in a portable chair at a charge of Is 6d, or in a wheelbarrow, Pickwickian fashion, for Is lOd. A cushion is 2d extra, but when a patient requires a wheelbarrow he is generally beyond worrying about cushions.