NEW ZEALAND COURT IN THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 871, 9 November 1888, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND COURT IN THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

By A. K. Newman.

As a Commissioner for the Colony I wes curious to see our Court, especially after the lavish abuse showered upon it by snarling critics. The Court is decidedly satisfactory in many respects, but it does not present the showy appearances of some of the sister Courts. Our raw products do not make a court beautiful. Let me explain. When we were working up material for the Court we were anxious specially to show the products of the fields, the output of our mines, and to win prizes at the shows, in order that our many excellent products might be widely known. The Commissioners wanted a good show of these, and I think the show is quite satisfactory. Some New Zealanders thought our Court “dull” and “ shabby,” and beside some courts it is certainly not attractive to the careless sight-seer. In the Austro-Hungarian Court, for instance, there are marvellously beautiful displays of glassware jewelled and ornamented with gold, vases worth L3OO a-piece, dinner services of immense value, and very handsome pianos and costly high-class furniture. These are far more attractive to thoughtless folk than are the Mosgiel or the Gear Meat Companies’ excellent exhibits, or the magnificent grain trophy. People who stand and admire beautiful brass work for churches turn disdainfully away from our splendid grain exhibits, calling them contemptuously a “lot of barn produce.” Our exhibition of wheat, oats and barley is far finer than any shown in any other court. Our exhibitions of produce and timber are really very fine, and just what I believe the Colony most needs to exhibit. In the agricultural shows it will be found New Zealand is far ahead of its sister colonies. SOME NEW ZEALAND PRIZES. New Zealand has won a host of prizes for produce, and the list is not complete yet. Let me jot down a few from memory. 1, first and many other prizes in beer ; 2, first and other prizes in honey; 3, first prize in oats ; 4, first prize in barley ; 5, first prize in tares ; 6, first prize in rye grass seed ; 7, first prize in cocksfoot; 8, first prize in potatoes; 9, first prize in cheese ; 10, first prize for salt beef. And this list of firsts is not complete, for the prizes for hops, preserved meat, woollen goods, and many other articles have not been awarded. *

I know many New Zealand folks utterly overlooked our honey exhibits, and preferred showing exhibits in other courts, yet, when I went to the show and saw our many honey prizes, I felt quite content. Directly after this show, a leading Melbourne tradesman went to Sir J. Hector, got one exhibitor’s address, and posted off an order for 2 cwt, declaring that no such honey had been seen there before, and that a big trade would spring up in it. I take it a chief object of our exhibiting was to find markets for our first-class products. Grey town (Wairarapa) won first prize for cheese, against exhibitors from all Australasia, and I think we should feel proud of such a win—and it certainly will help to make a reputation for all New Zealand cheese, and is a splendid advertisement of our rich pastures and excellent climate and of the skill of our farmers. Our exhibits of oats, barley and other produce were, I maintain, the very exhibits we wanted to show in order to attract people and capital—the very things which the Colony should produce before all others.

Our wheat display was excellent, and I was much disappointed when we got no prizes for it. Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and New Zealand all competed for the wheat prizes, but every prize went to Victoria. Our wheat was first-rate in quality and quantity, and I felt sure we should have won prizes, but the hard Victorian wheat weighs heavy, and I suppose that very largely influenced the judges. * OTHER EXHIBITS. In the previous Melbourne Exhibition, the Emperor of Germany gave twp, gold medals for. the. two best colonial niantffqc,iur.es. One of these was one by Costellp and Rowan for tlieir wipes, and the other by o.ur ]\losgiel Company, whose exhibit tordqy is even better than it was then. In Sydney and Melbourne the Mosgiel goods are enthusiastically praised, and are immensely better than any made in Victoria or New South Wales. If the heavy protective duties did not handicap them, these goods would have an. immense sale. Even as it is one sees them everywhere. Preserved meats, though not exhibits which make a court look showy, are in great force. The Gear Company has a fine large show ; and the exhibits of the Wanganui Company, the Patea CpmoaUW and the Auckland CqxppAny, Ml'show. ex;-' cellent w^kin&nsbffi^h a,tjestma't?, prizes. No; m|ea!s'were‘sent 1 by Hawses Bay'or'froin any fkctoryiii The Whfeab shown by sfej. lp|?fSp»*' M. L. ip.: bn, <jl ‘ ’ and'' & ...es, much, Pibfei, _ and »•*" attracted tissinentx " „ e re first-rate adver- —• ui the richness of our country, v ery striking exhibits of kauri gum were shown by Mr E. Mitchelson, and much of the New Zealand furniture was very beautiful and showy, and quite equal to that in other courts. The very large list of prizes won by our agricultural products in open competition with all Australia is a striking proof of the richness of our soil, and was the very best advertisement which New Zealand needed. I know as a matter of fact that they have taught our cousins across the

water much about us that they could not have learnt in any other way, and have greatly, raised the Colony in the estimation of hosts of people. When the jurors prize lists are all completed, the result should be gratifying to everyone of us, and satisfiying to the most hostile critic. I should like to draw a moral from this Exhibition—namely, that it is no good seeing unless we learn. • Now what I learnt from the show was this :—New Zealand folk should think more highly of their products and exhibit freely in Australia. I feel sure that if at the next Melbourne or Sydney Exhibition our fanners are not afraid of competition, and instead of thinking that what is grown in Australia must be much better, have agood belief in themselves and in their products, they will win a host of prizes and find new markets. We ought to exhibit cream, cheese, maize from Opotiki and other places ; giant fescue grasses, from Manukau and Hawlces Bay; Cape barley, tobacco, apples, and turnips, &c., &c. We (the Commissioners) wished to exhibit frozen beef and mutton, but there was no storage room. Had we been able to do this Mnnawatu fat marbled beef and Cantorbury excellent wethers would have made a show surprising to those accustomed to see Australian beef and mutton, hung up in the shops. PICTURES. New Zealand artists have exhibited freely and well, and the pictures are far finer than those in the courts of Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales and other Australian colonies. Of course there is as yet nothing like a New Zealand school,” and there is no family likeness in the pictures ; but the excellence of many, and the high average of the court redounded greatly to the credit of our Colony. Mr Moultray had three pictures of Milford, Dusky, and another Sound, each of which sold for L2OO, and had he waited they would have fetched still higher prices. Six hundred pounds for three pictures is the highest price gained by any of our artists. The works of the Misses Sperrey and Richardson, of this city, won considerable notice. Eodor has a capital picture of a shorthorn bull, excellent in drawing and colouring. Gully, Handel, Gear, Wymperis, and several others showed pictures well worthy of the Colony, and these, together with others, made a gallery of great merit. The photographs are numerous and excellent—indeed, the photographers of this Colony seem to produce better, softer, and clearer pictures than are shown in other courts, and are, as a class, better than others in the Exhibition. The pictures and the photographs lit up and greatly improved the aspect of the court, and served to attract to it many visitors who otherwise would have passed it by. OUR JMTNERAL EXHIBITS. Our mineral exhibits have been freely condemned, and certainly'are not nearly as showy or attractive as those in the sister courts. The real truth about the matter is that while New Zealand abounds in minerals, those minerals have not—except gold and coal—been extensively worked ; we possess mere museum specimens and not large manufactured quantities. The Colony possesses copper at Maharahara, but it would" not' show quantities as does South Australia. Nor can we shpw tin as Tasmania does from Mount Biscfioff. Our gold trophy, the next largest to that of Victoria, is strikingly attractive, and the coal exhibits showed up well. The mines in the other colonies .is more advanced and more varied than with us, and we could not, even if we spent large sums, make as attractive a court as New South Wales ; even the extra money voted by Parliament and the exhibits taken over by Mr Gordon will not put our court on a level with the others. But although New Zealand cannot show as great a variety of manufactured materials, its display of gold and other metals might have been better had the dividend-paying mines in Westland and in Coromandel responded to the urgent invitations of the Commissioners and sent their best exhibits. Many public companies in Victoria and New South Wales sent splendid exhibits, each worth hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of pounds. Sir James Hector did his utmost with the materials on hand ; but mining in New Zealand is riot sufficiently varied to enable us to make a mineral display as varied and pleasing and rich as that of New South Wales. Some years hence, doubtless, we shall, but mining here is still in its infancy.

SUMMARY. Many persons ask, “ Why did not our manufacturers show more ?” The best reply to this question is another question, viz., Why should they ? Victoria has adopted a protective, almost a prohibitive tariff, and many articles made here could not find a market in Victoria. At the previous Melbourne Exhibition a number of New [Zealand manufacturers went to great expense to display their wares, and several never got a single order—merely wasted tKeir nioriey, and as they cannot hope to sell go®ds in Victoria they naturally refuse to spend a lot of money exhibiting in a country which sets upon those very wares a prohibitive tariff. It Virlajf pay; a .Wellington or an Auckland manufactutor 'of btoughanis and victorias So’ exhibit in ' Duriedih iriext year, ’ but does anyone’ bejiriye” that' it ‘would pay to ’’’ bxhibi ( fc ton - built ftrqugliaips * for sale in' Melbourne ? J9l» pxhibitiojis coipe round too often, as, fo fact, ,there adP far too many of them, as each’ eßhjbitjoß costs each manufacturer a great (leal of money, and as there is no sale for these wares and times are dull and profits cut very fine, as they have no hope of gain and are certain to bo a

great deal out of pocket, it is difficult to give -any reason why many classes of our manufacturers should exhibit. Inspection of other Australian Courts proves that many manufacturers in New South Wales, South Australia and elsewhere have learnt that it is only waste of money to exhibit, and it is an open secret in exhibition circles that one colony at least has bought many exhibits from manufacturers and exhibited them at the cost of the colony, because the manufacturers refused to spend more money exhibiting in a country where they could not book a single order. The total cost of the New Zealand Court will be about LSOOO, and the cost of the New South Wales Court no less than L 50,000. Our court is not nearly as large nor as attractive, but to spend anything like the latter sum would have been sheer madness. The LSOOO we spent has resulted in a very fine exhibition of the products of our fertile fields and of our timber, gold, coal, and kauri gum ; and the New Zealand exhibits at the agricultural shows will have won sucli a very large number of “ first ” and other prizes that it must lead to an increased demand for our products, widening our markets, and helping to swell the tide of prosperity which has begun to set so strongly to our shores. Shortened as are our means, the money spent was a good investment, but to have spent L 20,000 would not have done the Colony any more good, and would merely have been so much money wasted. One other point is woll worthy of notice, viz., the size and number and variety of our exhibits. Our Court at the last Melbourne • Exhibition covered 6000 ft, and that space was allotted to New Zealand this time. So feeling that this was not enough, Mr Seed visited Melbourne, and with difficulty obtained from the authorities 20,000 ft. Even this (three times larger than our previous allotment) was too small, and the Court would have looked much better had there been more space for the exhibits. In addition, New Zealand had space in the machinery annexe, and a special bond for beer and wines.