CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 12 June 1939, Page 6

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS

ALTHOUGH 1939 does not quite end our first 100 years of existence, it will mark the beginning of the Centennial celebrations. Appropriate local observances are being planned, but the major event for most people will be the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington. As the Hon. D. G. Sullivan has said, as Minister of Industries and Commerce, and President of the Centennial Exhibition Company, the Exhibition will provide the means whereby the historical, cultural, inventive, manufacturing, agricultural and industrial background of our national life will be epitomised in colourful array. Moreover, the project is one that will provide an avenue for the spectacular display of the Dominion’s progress progress which, as the Minister says, has been truly phenomenal. Quoting the Minister further from an article in “Centennial News,” we can endorse his statement that our people are truly democratic in their outlook, and the Exhibition will provide a meeting place for the family of New Zealand—a meeting place where we can see in tangible form the achievements of the past, the accomplishments of the present; and, from the inspiration received there, visualise the future, and from there go forward to greater and better things. Mr Sullivan adds: “We are only across the threshold of progress, and the pathway of opportunity, and progress lies before us. As we will it, so shall we measure our advance. A studied enthusiasm for our own country and a studied zeal for its welfare will produce material results.” The “material results” referred to by the Minister will be increased if the exhortation of the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry) is given the attention it deserves. After paying high tribute to the Press of New Zealand, and the Centennial /

Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, for public-spirited treatment of the Centennial plans and all they involve, he writes: “Looking forward, I hope that New Zealand’s best celebration of the Centennial will be in the development of national treemindedness, which will save the country from a repetition of blunders in the destruction of protective forests in high country—the disastrous mistakes which have opened the way to erosion. Whatever differences of opinion New Zealanders may have on political or industrial questions, they must be solidly united in saving the soil which yields the needs of life. For that purpose there is only one platform for all parties the platform of New Zealand itself.” This appeal is also entitled to complete endorsement. It does not conflict with the pronouncement of the Minister s colleague on the national aspects of the Centennial Exhibition. There is no doubt that the past hundred years have been marked by an utter disregard of the importance of forest conservation and of the consequences resujting therefrom. The coming hundred years should be devoted to compensating, or making amends for, the wholesale destruction of our forests in the past hundred years. The National Historical Committee of the Centennial celebration organisation is doing splendid work, but we are not too sure that the energetic and enthusiastic chairman of the Nelson section of the committee is receiving the full support required by the imnortance of the task involved. There is yet time for individual citizens and local organisations to give the assistance needed.