NEW ZEALAND AT WEMBLEY.

Evening Star, Issue 18668, 24 June 1924, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND AT WEMBLEY.

First reports, meant for attention in tins country, have not been flattering to the New' Zealand pavilion at the great Wembley Exhibition. “ Rotten, with a capital R,” was the description given to it in a letter received, by a Wellington gentleman from a friend- “ The exhibits on the whole,” ho declared, “ are poor and unattractively set out. Old photographs of Maoris and scenes which look as though they were collected from the commercial roc(h of a back-country ‘ pub ’ adorn the walls. There is a collection of fruit, meat, and cheese in glass cases, which looks very prosaic, and does not strike the eve. But worse than that is a collection of stuffed sheep in a case purporting to represent the pastoral industry.” With more to like effect. It may have been this critic who incurred the scorn of defenders of th-.s Government's exhibit on the score that he did not know the difference between a sheep and a lamb, and the testimony of the chairman of the Meat Producers’ Board that the display in which ■he had most cause to bo interested was, in his own opinion and that of the trade and the public, and with no intention of unkindly satire, a “ remarkable advertisement for the dominion,” makes a welcome

•statement for tho alleviation of our misgivings. Unhappily, tho appraiser first referred to has been only ono of a number of adverse critics. They may liavo all done injustice to tho Now Zealand pavilion by attempting to pass judgment on it when it was still incomplete—it is alleged to have been at the opening date easily tho farthest from completion of any of the important sections. But the number of them cannot but bo disturbing until some conclusive answer has been given to their censures. “ New Zealanders at Home gencrally,” it has boon said, “ wore disappointed with the poor show made.” A Scotsman is reported as writing that “ a few rabbitskin fur coats on poles and miles of photographs ” were the main impressions loft on him by the display. A New Zealander who has a position at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, complains of exhibits ill-selected, umlistincfcivo, and displayed with “ no sense of advertisement, no imagination, no appeal or assistance to the observer.” The New Zealand meat in the New Zealand restaurant was the toughest ho had tasted, and the thought predominant in his mind was that a glorious opportunity to display in an arresting manner the advantages and attractions of this country bad boon missed. The Maoris’ disgust with tho Maori but, presented years ago to Queen Victoria and forgotten in the, basement of a London museum till it was unearthed for this Exhibition, would be intelligible if it referred to one startling feature of it. When the panels of reed work between thq carved slabs which support the lower ends; of tho rafters were required to bo replaced owing to decay, the upper portions of them were filled in by gilt-framed photographs—a real outrage on Maori art. Otherwise it would bo curious if the hut presented to a queen wore not a particularly good specimen of its kind—-a kind of which there are very fc\v worthy examples now extant in Now Zealand. It is not many of tho visitors to Wembley who will bo critical of Maori carving, but they will bo critical of the dominion’s exhibit as a whole; and if that makesji poor impression when compared with tho displays of: other dominions tho Government will have spent between £7O,COD and £SO,OCO on no more than a bad advertisement of New Zealand. As regards tho complaint of too many “ dead exhibits, ’ it would obviously bo more difficult to show working processes of primary than of secondary industries. A demonstration of sheep being killed, for example, might have shocked tho first critic more than tho stuffed sheep or lambs which ho derided. Something has been done in taking advantage of the most modern methods by the moving pictures of typical industries which are being shown at Wembley. First reports on the pavilion as a whole may have hern unjust, but tho balance of evidence would suggest at present that the Government is likely to got more advantage for this dominion from expenditure which it makes on the, Dunedin Exhibition.