CANAL EXPOSITION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16793, 22 February 1915, Page 6

CANAL EXPOSITION.

There is common-sense at the back of the human habit of organising an exhibition whenever a special event has to be celebrated. Exhibitions are, of course, only a method of advertisement, but they have the advantage of attracting people to the locality to he advertised, and, whereas the ordinary advertisement is sent out to look for the people, tho exhibition advertisement brings the people in to look at the goods. The Californians were not without an excuse for the great exposition which the President of the United States has just opened by wireless. In August of last year communication by water was established between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the isthmus of Panama, and but for the accident that the world had just entered upon the greatest war in history we should doubtless have celebrated the Central American incident as one of the outstanding events of modern times. Next month, when President "Wilson leads a formal procession through the canal, we shall have the opportunity of paying the long-overdue tribute to the courage and enterprise of the American people- in undertaking an engineering task of unexampled magnitude and to the skill with which the work has been carried to a successful conclusion. That the opening of the waterway will profoundly affect the trade of the Pacific goes without siaying. Sooner or later the eastern States of Australia and New Zealand will come to look at the Panama route as preferable to the Suez, and results that oannot yet be foreseen, much less calculated, are likely to come from the closer connection with America. It goes without saying that the Pacific coast of North America will have to deal with an increased shipping trade as the canal comes more into use, and already the Californians have set seriously to work to develop their new trade with the eastern coasts. That is why San Francisco has thrown itself so enthusiastically into the exposition project. The official literature that lias been circulated broadcast from the Californiah capital tolls us that seven of tho nations engaged in the great war are represented at the exposition, and that their displays have not in the least been affected by the hostilities. From the same source we learn that the area covered by the buildings breaks all records. » Never have art architecture combined fo produce so magnificent a scheme of construction and decoration. Never has there been gathered together in one city so comprehensive a display of the world's manufactures. We may take these features for granted. After all, the impressive fact about the San Francisco exhibition is not its magnitude or the wealth of its display, but the fact that it is being held. The whole project was in danger of collapsing in August, and no one would have been surprised if European nations had promptly concelled all their arrangements in connection with it. But the Americans simply set to work with new diligence to overcome objections, and the exhibition that has been opened, though perhaps not the magnificent display that would have been made if there had been no war, it still a remarkable proof of the energy and' enterprise of the Californians.