CENTENNIAL YEAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23704, 11 January 1939, Page 10

CENTENNIAL YEAR

PLANS FOR CELEBRATIONS STATEMENT BY MINISTER (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jan. 10. From the start of the new financial year in April, a beginning will be made to bring to maturity the official plans for the celebration of New Zealand’s centennial at the end of the present year, the organisation for which will probably be the largest ever attempted in the Dominion. The Government and all local and kindred bodies are uniting in the work. “There must now be a quickening of action for the centennial,” stated the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr W. E. Parry) to-day, “and anything that is found not to fit in toward the success of the celebrations will be placed aside for something that will do so. Half-measures or the likely failure of any plan cannot be countenanced, and by colleagues in the Ministry and in the National Centennial Committee view matters in this spirit. “The birth of the New Year, 1940, will see in being the biggest happening in New Zealand since the arrival of the first settlers,” Mr Parry added. “The people can afford to be effusive over their country’s centennial. We must all proudly work to see that nothing is left undone which would help to celebrate the consummation of effort over 100 years.”