THE COLONIAL EXHIBITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XX, Issue 242, 11 October 1886, Page 2

THE COLONIAL EXHIBITION.

THE HON. J. C. RICHMOND'S OPINION. So many rumors having been afloat and statements made regarding the New Zealand Court at the Exhibition in which, it has been alleged, the colony was not represented to advantage, we believed that it would be interesting to our readers to learn what an old colonist who has recently returned from a trip to England, and to whose opinions much weight would be attached, bad to say about it. A representative of this paper, therefore, waited recently upon the Ron J. C. Richmond for the purpose of putting n few questious to him on the subject, and we need scarcely say that he was very kindly rocei ved. The I'oliowiug gives a general idea of the conversation, but we must first of all state that Mr Richmond wished it to be clearly underr-too 1 that he did not visit the Exhibition with any view of reporting upon it, and consequently, that m;my little things may have escaped his memory. " I went there,' he say?, "as an ordinary visitor and not or a critic, and was generally accompanied by several friends who looked to me for information upon all they saw." Did the Court give you a good i3ea of the position New Zealand occupies as a producing country ? No, I think noL What has been said of it that it has all tho appearance of a Natural History -Museum is perfectly correct, though I am not prepared to say thut thi.3 does not make it attractive to the general public, There is nothing special or striking about ifc, as, for instance, in the Canadian Court. As soon as you entered that you saw that it represented a great hunting and fur producing country. You w?re at once struck by the magnificent collection of furs which Was bo large and so varied as to immediately arrest trie attention. In the New Zealand Court what appeared, so far as I know, to strike people most whs the conservatory of ferns. There was a larsre collection of theso, ar.d they were very beau' if ul but by no means in perfect condition, a8 they had not been loDg enough iu the place to be at homo in their new quarters. The furniture and samples o£ furniture woods in their raw state, especially a section of kauri from the rind to the heart, attracted a great deal of notice. There were several good sized rooms completely furnished with the New Zealand made article and carpeted with the product of her looms. Some of the articles of furniture were immensely admired, the colors of the elaborate inlaid work being very handsome and something to which the

„-ish people are quite unaccustomed, dome samples of totara roots of very rich color were also a good deal noticed. So far as my observations went there was nothing eltc that was calculated to make much impression on the visitor. The woollen manufactures were good, but no better than in Wellington. Still they were a good deal noticed, and many of them were displayed to great advantage, hanging, as they were, in booths that had been fitted up for their reception. In the way of machinery there whs nothing that struck me. My own opinion is that if the Wellington Exhibition had been tranpportpd just as it was and placed in the Colonial Exhibition it would have given a far better idea of what the colony is like and what it can produce than does the New Zealand Court as it is. Would you have formed the idea from what you saw that New .Zealand was a large grain producing country ? I think not, but you must remember that I was not going there for information or for the purpose of criticising, but merely for the sake of amusement. I will not say that there were not good specimens of grain, but they certainly did not make any impression upon me. What I saw were in small samples, and I think that had I, as a connoisseur, been on the look out for samples with a view to ascertaining the capacity of the country for its production, I should have expected to see the grain exhibited in bags, but there was nothing of the kind. Did the wool make a prominent show ? There were some remarkably fine specimens, but they were all in glass cases, and the ordinary visitors could form no opinion of their quality, except from thus looking at it. It is possible, however, that if any one wanted to examine it, he might have obtained permission to handle it. Was there no one to give any information ? Not that lam aware of. There may have been, and probably was, an officer in charge, but he was not conspicuous, and it occurred to me at the time that there should have been men there wearing distinctive badges, from whom strangers might ask for information. Would a stranger visiting the Court have obtained the impression from what he saw there that it was a great gold producing country ? No, but I am not quite prepared to say how such an impression could have been created. In the Victorian Court there was a great ugly trophy in the shape of a gilded arch, which represented in bulk the amount of gold taken out of the ground in that colony, but the idea which it conveyed of the actual quantity was not very impressive, while it gave none whatever of its real value. I am afraid there is no room for doubt that wretched treatment has been accorded to the pictures ? No. The pictures are stowed away in a loft which you have to reach either in a lift or by a long and tiring walk. There is no difficulty in finding |the way for those who take the main road from Kensington to the Exhibition, but those who arrive by tho underground railways, and other ways— and these constitute the great mass of the visitors— would experience considerable difficulty in finding them. The light too is so bad that on an ordinary London day you can hardly see them at all, and in addition to this the works of our local artist, Mr Gully, are so badly hung that you have to retreat a considerable distance from them in order to get the right line of sight, and this, added to the dim light, makes it impossible to get any correct idea of what they are like. This is to be very greatly regretted as, apart from detracting from their merit merely as works of arc, it prevents people from a'C'r&aining what our i-'cenery is like, and for my purt I look upon the scenery of New Zealand as one of its great assets. There it is, and ifc cannot, be taken away from as, though, of course, in reply to this some may say " you have lost a bit of it already," but, our mountains not going on blowing up one af'er the other, and bosides, what has taken place will offer nn additional attraction to tourists, who will come to see the general moss that has been made. lam sure'; that year after year the number of visitors from other parts of the world, and from Australia particularly, will largely increase during the summer months, when they will come down to enjoy the eight of snow on our magnificent mountains, I am convinced that it is a great pity that the arrangements for exhibiting the pictures are bo bad. I notice that some London critio has been •writing- that there is nothing in the shape of art in the pictures from New Zealand, but that they consist of only topographic work and surveyor's drawings, Sea. Perhaps ha is right so far as what ore to be seen iu tbe Court itself are concerned, for there Miss Gordon Cuinmiug's pictures are shown, rouio of which ore precisely of that character and very cleverly done too. B\V, it is a great pity that such an opinion should be formed simply because we do not fhow what we i have produced in tbe way of ar*. The raaee of (.he people who vinfc the Exhibition will have no ide » taut such pictures are there, for, ne a rule, they visit the placa in the afteruoon when the light is very poor, and ! as I have said, Mr Gully's large pictures are so badly hung that you have no chance of seeing them under a favorable light, while his smaller ones are quite invisible. I wonder Sir Dillon Bell did nob put in his oar and endeavor to procure more favorable conditions for the exhibition of pictures which, to my mind, forms, or should form, one of the principal features of the New Zealand Court. Then on the whole, you do not think the New Zealand Court compares favorably with the others ? No. It is far smaller and less attractive. Of course all the Courts suffer by comparison with the Indian Court which is thronged all day. The carving and the beautiful metal work draw crowds. Then there are plenty of little side shops where you can buy all sorts of curiosities, and which offer great attraction to the women as they include tea shops where you can get all kinds of refreshments. On the other hand it must be remembered that the Court attracts immense numbers to the Exhibition which, but for it, would not be nearly so numerously patronised. The Canadian Court contains a largo quantity of machinery, including an immcnHc number of grand pianos, 0 I all tbingn. For these nobody seemed to care. There wa« always a man stumping away on thorn vi-ry badly but no opportunity of judging of thoir merits. I think the New Zealand Court might have been made more attractive if there had bt-on more saleable articles, nn iu the Indian Court, but ho far oh I could make out, there was nothing of a really uMraolive nature obtainable except the furniture.