CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23556, 20 July 1938, Page 7

CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION

PROVINCIAL REPRESENTATION X COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME BRITAIN’S PARTICIPATION (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 19. Plans for a comprehensive scheme of provincial representation are to be laid before the directors of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition at a special meeting to-morow morning. They are at, present merely tentative. If the suggestions are approved by the directors they will be subject to acceptance by the various provincial committees, for they will eliminate separate provincial courts. The suggestion is that the scheme of separate provincial courts should be abandoned and each province, instead of having an Individual exhibit, will be represented by an appropriate portion of the large scale model of New Zealand showing in full detail and realistic form the industries, tourist attractions and other interesting features of the country. The model would be on a scale sufficient to make each section really detailed and representative.

The scheme which has been put forward by the Exhibition builders is stated to be most striking and much more spectacular form the point of view of visitors to the Exhibition than any series of separate stands could possibly be. If adopted, however, it will presumably mean the scrapping of any plans that may have already been made for separate provincial courts, ■ The suggestion that the proposals for a combined exhibit in place of separate provincial courts at the Exhibition had been made on account of lack of co-operation by certain provinces was emphatically denied by Colonel H. E. Avery, the Exhibition secretary, to-night. He stated that the proposal had been put forward by independent interests a considerable time ago, but specific plans for the directors’ consideration had only just been submitted. Until the directors had considered it the proposal was entirely tentative. Confirmation of the cabled announcement that Great Britain intended to participate in the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in 1940 is contained in a cablegram received by the secretary of the Exhibition Company from the manager, Mr C. P. Hainsworth, who has just left London. Mr Hainsworth said that the British Government wished to reserve 28,000 square feet of space for a special pavilion. This was wholly unexpected. The amount of space was greatly in excess of what the company had anticipated would be the British share in the Exhibition, though it did not nearly equal the New Zealand Government’s reservation of 100,000 square feet. As it would involve the erection of a large pavilion in the Exhibition grounds, probably near the main entrance, it would no doubt require a certain modification in the plans for the gardens and lawns ip that portion of the grounds. It was highly improbable that if Canada, Australia or South Africa participated they would take as large an area. Their pavilions would probably have to be arranged to balance the British pavilion in preserving the symmetry of the layout.