THE NEW WEMBLEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19500, 8 June 1925, Page 12

THE NEW WEMBLEY.

ALL GOING “ ONE BETTER/’ THE DOMINION PAVILION. (Feom Op« Own Oobbespondent.) LONDON, April 23. A number of London journalists were entertained at a luncheon at Wembley yesterday, and afterwards they had an opportunity of inspecting the preparations for the opening of the Exhibition on May d. “New Zealand is going to have a good show this year,” was the unsolicited opinion of a number of these visitors. This is perfectly true, but, not to speak with bias, it must be mentioned that both Australia and Canada are also against making great efforts to give the public something worth coming a long way to see. Australia is putting in a number of new panoramas, and Canada has launched out on the biggest panorama scheme that has ever been presented. An alcove 250 ft in length, is set apart for this, and here there is to be depicted in panorama the whole of Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The picture will be 24ft high and 40ft deep. TYPICAL OF THE BUSH. Already the hush scene panorama is* completed in the New Zealand As one enters the main hall the first thing that will strike the eye looking down a vista of New Zealand ferns will be tun* excellent bush scene with a waterfall m full play. The water is carried down a sloping rock face from the right and fall/ 1 over a rock edge about 3ft wide which occupies the centre of the picture. The tall is about 10ft high, and the water comes down in an unbroken sheet to tne pool beneath. Surrounding this is the native bush very well represented by the New Zealand artists, Mr A. R. 1’ raser and Mr J. F. Scott. The left background is occupied by a representation of a long wooded valley, and the impression is that one is looking to the rising hills 10 or Ja miles away. The roar of the falling creek is very realistic, and one can imagine c excellent first impression which will. be given by this reproduction of New Zealand SC On each side of the main hall will be the dioramas of the chief cities, and above these, as last year, the large canvases depicting dominion beauty spots. WONDERLAND SECTION. At the far end of the Primary Products Court is the panorama of, the Thermal District This, without doubt, will be the chief attraction of the Pavilion. There are certain finishing touches to be earned out but yesterday the press visitors were able to see it almost in its completed state, with the mud volcano, made of mud from Rotorua, in action, and the miniature geyser playing at brief intervals. The loreground is taken up with a reproduction of Whakarewarewa. There is the bridge from which the Maori children dive for pennies there .are the whares set above the hot pools,, in which dark forms will be seen, there are mud pools. It is all very true to the actual scene. - • , . . But the scene in the background is frankly magnificent. A compromise has had to bo made, of course, and what one actually sees is the panorama from the top of Mount Tarawera. Immediately beneath are the Lakes Tarawera and Rotomahana, and in the distant right the hills above Rotorua On the left is the Lake Rorewhaikaitu, and the hills beyond. The scene takes in apparently some 40 miles each way, and the artist has done his work so well that the delusion is perfect. No praise can be too great for those who have prepared this excellent work, and New Zealanders who visit the pavilion will bo genuinely pleased with the way in which the Wonderland of the North Island has been presented for the instruction of the British public. _ The other panoramas—Wanganui River, Waitomo Caves, Mount Cook, Milford Sound, and a dairy farm—have a little more to be done to them, and it is advisable to leave comment upon them until they are complete in every detail. A BEAUTIFUL ROOF SCHEME. However utilitarian the New Zealand building, and however fine its outside appearance, the inside as left by the builders could never be called artistic or beautiful. Last year the brief time available to make their preparations prevented the commissioner and his assistants from disguising the bam-like nature of the interior. All that is altered this year. The bays for the various sections disguise the severely Elaia walls, and a very fine scheme has een emplayed to decorate the roof. The sloping roofs are covered with Cambridge blue casement cloths up to the skylights, and over the skylights is placed cream muslin. The steel girders that span the secondary industries court are also covered with gathered and pleated cream casement cloth. The material for this scheme has been obtained -at the manufacturers’ cost price. It has not been a small undertaking necessarily, but whatever the cost might have been it was well worth while. The result is most pleasing. The cream and the blue have a most striking appearance, and the softened light has a most charming effect. The central wool exhibit has been altered. The pyramid has been lowered to enable the sculptured figure of a shearer and sheep to be placed on top. At each comer of the pyramid will be surmounted a stuffed sheep —a Romney, a Corriedale, a Merino, and a Lincoln. Each of the four portals beneath the pyramid has been closed up and two transparencies illustrating sheep farming and sheep country are placed therein. These eight transparencies are illuminated from inside the shell of the pyramid. The four selling kiosks are placed at the four points of the compass about the circle of th© wool exhibit. These latter are artistic erections, and are decorated with Maori designs. THE PHOTOGRAPHS. Some ingenuity was heeded to dispose of all the photographs which last year decorated the walls of the court. Mr Roberts has adopted the plan of placing them on circulating cabinets. Each cabinet has 16 leaves, and each leaf will hold four photographs. Thus visitors will be able to stand at one point and be able, by turning the leaves round, to inspect 64 pictures. There are four of these cabinets. The sports bay is practically complete. Deer heads cover the three sides or the wall. There are about 60 of them, but so well spaced that they appear to be a much larger nubmer. Certainly they are a most imposing spectacle. On the floor of the bay round the three walls are placed the cases containing the birds of the dominion. Standing out from the walls will be the cases containing the swordfish and other smaller fish. It is satisfactory to note that this year four very fine oil paintings by Mr Marcus King have found an appropriate place in one of the bays. These illustrate four phases of colonial life—the coming of Tasman in 1642, the arrival of Cook in 1776, the pioneers’ of 1840, and the migrants of 1924 arriving in Wellington Harbour in the splendid liners of to-day. A NEW ZEALAND CLUB. New Zealanders this year visiting the pavilion will be able to make use of the figured rimu reception room. By signing their names in the visitors’ book they will be entitled to consider themselves members of the New Zealand Club, and tea and simple lefreshmont may be procured, probably at the price of Is each. The commissioner reserves the right to make any regulations he desires with regard to the room. Much will depend upon how it is used by the visiting New Zealanders. Should too many people who are not genuine New Zealanders attempt to make use of the room it may be necessary to cancel the privilege. What a joy it will be not to have to listen to disappointed apologists saying, as they did last year, “Of course, New Zealand is only a little country a long way off, and it couldn’t be expected to cio much.” This year people are going to see what they should have been able to see in 1924, and what they then expected to see. Various new ideas are to be embodied among the stalls, and not the least useful and interesting should be the bookstall. Here books on New Zealand will be for sale. They will embrace every kind, from novels by New Zealand writers to books on the dominion dealing with the opportunities it offers sportsmen. Interesting books on the history and development of the country will be there as far as they are obtainable. Mr Roberts, who has given charge of this section to Mrs Gigord Moore, stipulates for two conditions —the literature either is to be about New Zealand or it is to have New Zealand authorship. NOVEL FEATURES. Lord Askwith, who has seen the 1925 Exhibition in the making, writes an article in the Morning Post, in whch he ventures the prediction that Wembley of 1925 will be far more successful than its predecessor “The Exhibition of 1924 was a definite attempt on the part of the British Empire —the first made by any nation or group of nations since the end of the war —to start afresh the wheels of commerce. The attempt was successful, and a stimulus was certainly given to trade —not only to the trade of the British Empire, but to the trade pf the world. This year’s Exhibition

is intended to oil the slowly revolving wheels and to accelerate the pace. The business of the Exhibition is business, and though the social and entertainment side will be much to the fore this year at least, Wembley is something far more than a mere place of amusement. “But what has this year’s Exhibition to offer that is new and different from last year’s? Nobody likes ‘warmed up’ meals, and people both in England and abroad there are always plenty of ‘ croakers to be found —are wondering whether the Exhibition of 1925 will not be merely a "warmed up’ Exhibition. I confess that I rather wondered myself at first. East year’s Exhibition was so crowded with wonders that there did not seem much left that could be really new this year. 1 visited Wembley thus prejudiced, but when I heard something of the new plans and proposals prejudice disappeared, and it was plain that this year's Exhibition will be very different from last year’s, and that there will be nothing of a ’warmed up nature about it. Every country and part of the Empire exhibiting is determined to ‘go one better ’ than last year, and rivalry exists among the organisers, ffhey seem ■■ to lie determined to endorse _ I.ord Beaconsfleld’s maxim that ‘ success is the child of audacity.’ The list of new attractions could be almost indefinitely lengthened, as in almost every case those responsible intend to surpass their efforts ot a year ago. . . “ The Old Country is not lagging behind, and in the Palace of Engineering, renamed this year ‘ The Palace of Housing and Transport,’ the important subject ot ’ housing’ will be illustrated by an extensive display organised by a committee, ot ■which the Minister of Health (Mr Neville Chamberlain, M.P.) is president. The aim. of this display will be to show the practical usee of new methods and materials in house building, and also in heating and other domestic comforts. I was impressed by the fact, that those responsible for the planning a d carrying out of the many vast schemes are ‘wise enough to know that there are some things they may not know’,’ and are ready —nay keen—do learn from others and from the experiences gained in 1924, and so avoid some of the mistakes inseparable from an Exhibition of this character, and the first of its kind, at any rate, in modern history.” GAS IN HOUSING AND INDUSTRY. The Empire gas exhibit this year will be divided into two parts, one dealing with gas and modern housing, and the other with the revitalisation of the gas industry. Tlie exhibit has been planned and will be controlled by a committee on which all the representative organisations in the gas iudusti-y and many of the leading undertakings in different parts of the Empire are represented. It will include quarters for a chauffeur equipped with a gas installation, adjoining gas-heated garage and workshop. These will show the solution of domestic problems in very modest premises. There will bo model kitchens and home laundries to meet the needs of every class of home. Daily lectures will be given on gas cooking, with demonstrations in which only Empire food products will Vie used, and these should prove of much practical hplp to women. The contribution of the industry toward the reduction of waste of fuel, materials, and labour in industry will be illustrated by a working exhibit of the application of gas to the manufacture of motors. Other sections will show the gas-firing of pottery by the disabled ex-Servico men of the Ashstead Pottery, and a gas travelling oven will bake 100 tins of wafers daily throughout the run of the exhibition. The general contribution of gas to the efficient working of the textile, shipbuilding, leather, and other large industries will be demonstrated, and a largo gas-coke exhibit will show the chief alternative industrial fuel for processes to which gas is not suited. The part gas can play in smoko abatement will be seen, and also the uses to which gas may be put in popular amateur hobbies. NEW BRITISH SECTION. A great attraction will be the medical section, described in the British Medical Journal as “one of the most comrehonsivo and detailed displays of the steps m the evolution ot modern medicine and hygiene yet devised in any country.” The section, which .will bo in the British Government pavilion, will depict medicine ot the past, present, aqd future. Some primitive ideas of preventive medicine of the African ‘‘medicine man” will be shown. Also a range of charms, votive offerings, amulets, and the rheumatism rings of today. Mediaeval alchemy will have its place beside the modem bacteriologist. There will be models of all the biting insects of England, including the mosquito, while plague precautions will be shown in graphic detail. Infectious diseases are to be treated both allegorically and practically, and the importance of isolation is emphasised. The work of Lister will bo conlrasted with a modern operating theatre. In the medi-cine-of-tho-future section considerable attention will be devoted to maternity and child-welfare. Open-air schools and games and the possibilities of sunlight treatment will bo demonstrated. ,