The Otago Daily Times. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1925. THE WINTER SHOW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19496, 3 June 1925, Page 8

The Otago Daily Times. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1925. THE WINTER SHOW.

The Minister of Agriculture spoke very briefly yesterday at the opening of the Winter Show. Presumably he felt • that to commend an exhibition that is now thoroughly well-established would bo supererogatory. Nor is it to bo overlooked that the events of the past few weeks still cast their shadow over the life of the community. The remembrance that only a. short year ago Mr Massey was in Dunedin performing the ceremony which yesterday fell to the lot of Mr Nosworthy necessarily lent a mournful tinge to the remarks of the Minister. When he declared that the country had been overburdened with sorrow at the passing of the late Prime Minister, he spoke in no exaggerative terms. Mr Massey was not only a great colonial administrator. Ho was also a groat Imperial statesman and, as the multiplied tributes to him have shown, his removal has involved the whole Empire in loss. The death of one man, however, necessitates the call to another to step into the gap and fill the vacant place ; and, in congratulating Mr Coates on his assumption of office, Mr Nosworthy directed attention to the fact that both the late Prime Minister and his successor started life as primary producers. It would be absurd to suggest that work on a farm constitutes the best of training for a political career, but it is likely that the public of New Zealand is not at the present time indisposed to deduce a hopeful inference from the fact that Mr Coates made his first practical acquaintance with the stem realities of life in the same way as Mr Massey did. A comforting contrast was drawn by Mr Nosworthy between ' the state of the agriculturist and pastoralist industry, two years ago, when the Winter Show was last opened by him, and its state at the present time, and he recalled the circumstance that he had then ventured to forecast better prices for all primary products of the dominion -—a forecast which, fortunately, was fully realised. There is no great temptation at the, present time to predict what is in store, but it may be assumed with some measure of confidence that the future lies to a large extent in the hands of the producers themselves and that if the commodities they supply can always be recommended by the superiority of their quality there will he no special cause for the farmers to be apprehensive regarding the markets. Mr Nosworthy justly offered his congratulations respecting both the number and the stamp of the exhibits in the Winter Show, and he was careful to point out that the quality of the exhibits demonstrated the great capabilities of Otago as a producing district. His speech, as a whole, may be described as characteristic of the man in that it was simple and straightforward, while it breathed a spirit of goodwill to all classes of the community and was suggestive of confidence in the ability of the agriculturists and the pastoralists to maintain the prestige of their industry.