PANAMA EXHIBITION COMMISSIONERS

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 81

PANAMA EXHIBITION COMMISSIONERS

ARRIVAL OF COMMISSION. IMPORTANCE TO NEW ZEALAND. INVERCARGILL, November 17. The United States Commission to Ausalasia in the interests of the Panama xposition arrived at Bluff by the Ulilaroa to-day. The members of the comlission are Governor Alva Adams, of olorado; Messrs T. G. Stallsmith, O. evier, and S. A. Cloman, who have been snt out by the United States Government. “ Our mission is to give any information lat may be of interest to anyone conerned as to what the fair is and what are le possibilities arising through it,” said Ir Sevier. “ There are many reasons dry Australia and New Zealand should e represented.. This canal means more to hem than to any other countries in the rorld, because it shortens the distance om European markets by about 4000 dies. The best market that the canal pens up is that on the eastern seaboard f North America, where New Zealand nd its produce are quite unknown. By lowing these people what you have got t the exposition you will create a tremenous demand for your produce. There s in the United States a great restless opulation of moneyed men who are ready 0 spend their money on new territory. A umber of them have gone to the northrest of Canada, and we believe that if he products of your country are prominntly exhibited you will attract large numers of these men to New Zealand. These >eople do not know anything about your ountry. You must show them your posibilities and they will come out to you.” Mr Stallsmith said that the commission lad under way negotiations for some very dee herds and draught horses, and it was Kjssible that New- Zealand breeders with rhom he had been in touch would be ©presented. They were looking for New 'ealaud representation on a large scale; n fact, they already had assurances from 1 number of big breeders that they would ©nd some of their finest stock to the exjosition. He hoped also to see a fine dis>lay of the foodstuffs produced in New jealand, and in this connection there would be a foods products palace, in which iroduce from all over the world would be exhibited side by side, which, after all, would be the best method of comparison. Agricultural produce, strictly speaking, would be shown in an agricultural palace under similar conditions. It might be of interest for him to state that it was customary among nations participating in an exposition iuch as the present would be to erect i national pavilion. These pavilions were erected not to house exhibits but for the purpose of providing a home centre where visitors could receive their letters, and whence literature dealing with the country ©presented could be distributed. The in terior should be furnished with the furniture of the country represented, and should, leedless to say, be of the best workmmihip of the country. There was no charge ynade for space at the exposition pavilions, neither was there any charge for the ground upon which the national pavilions were erected. “It is hoped,” said Mr Stallsmith, “that New Zealand will take official action in the matter at a very early date, as it is now only 14 months before the exposition will require to be in readiness for the opening. There will probably be very large horticultural displays from New Zealand, showing its fruits, natural and otherwise, together with flowers and other decorative plants. A prize of 5000 dollars will be given for the development of a new variety of rose, and this should interest rose growers. You have many beautiful shrubs and plants, and, the climate of California being so like that of New Zealand, they should be exhibited to great advantage.’ It was also pointed out by Mr Stallsmith that official representation would entitle New Zealand to representation on the International Jury of Awards, in connection with which it' was customary to set aside a representation equal to 49 per cent, for foreign exhibitors. Accompanying the commission are Mi’s Adam Stallsmith and Mrs Cloman. Mr William Skalisrnitli acts as secretary.

ENTERTAINED AT LUNCHEON. The Panama Pacific Exposition Commissioners (Governor Alva Adams, Mcesrc F. G. Stallsmith, O’Neil Sevier, and Major S. A. Cloman) were entertained at luncheon on the 19th in the Y.-iu.C.A. building by the members of the Dunedin Expansion League. About 60 representative citizens sat down to the luncheon which had been tastefully set out in the social hall. Hie Worship the Mayor (Mr W. Downie Stewart) presided, and among those present were Mr A. Bathgate (President of the Dunedin Expansion League) and Mr E. Clifton, who had been deputed by the Government to travel with the commissioners. The Chairman expressed the pleasure which all experienced in welcoming the visiting commissioners, whom he suitably and briefly introduced to the assemblage. He knew that there was in America a great interest in New Zealand matters—a moro 0/7 five -nncl intelligent* ‘*nt<?rost tlinn was taken in this commission by any other country outside Australia. The visitors would have had no doubt about the fact that they had arrived in New Zealand because an American writer named Henry D. Lloyd had written a book about it called “The land without strikes.”— (Laughter.) He hoped the visitors would not go away and write a book and call it

“ The land where there were always strikes.”—-( Laughter.) Mr P. R. Sargood said it remained for him to add to the welcome extended by his Worship that of the members of the Expansion League. These gentlemen, he said, came with a message, the nature of which would he explained later on ; He wished the members of the commission, which was a thoroughly representative one, a pleasant stay in New Zealand, and hoped in return that the people here would gain information from them about the exposition which was to mark the completion of this great aid to international commerce. That canal, to his mind, was an epitome of the sterling worth, business ability, and determination of character of the great American nation, and as such alone they should welcome its opening. Governor Adams, who was cordially received, spoke in a humorous, but thoughtful, strain. He said he had been reading Dunedin literature and New Zealand literature for several days, and that seemed to have left Heaven no argument whatever. —(Laughter.) He did not know where else he had found so many things that seemed fitted to the " building of a good people. On the previous evening he had met Mr Marshall and Mr Loudon, and they had given him some marvellous statistics. After talking to Mr Marshall he was not going to do any more boasting. He had told him that on one acre they had raised a cow and a calf, two horses, and two pigs, 40 fowls, and four children.—(Laughter.) He also told him that there were no snakes or scorpions—nothing but what was good and sweet and fine. - then he said that no one died until Dunedin or New Zealand had a good man to spare and Heaven needed another angel.—(Laughter.) They had the climate and the soil, and God had given them the sunshine and the rains, but those were worthless unless they as men put their muscle and their brain into it. All that he read showed him that Australasia was a land of plenty and prosperity and a land of liberty. They felt in his own country that thev in New Zealand had done much for them. Theirs was a new land, and thev had the power to try old principles by new methods. They had placed upon their statute books experiments, some of which might prove failures and some of which might prove Successful, but at any rate they had broken new ground and high ground in the |»rinciples of civic and governmental liberty. They looked to them for examples, and they hoped they would succeed. They were proving "with manly courage that democracy was not a P| ,an " tom ship upon a painted ocean. New Zealand and America were not as far apart as the oceans would indicate. In their veins and his ran the crimson thread of a common ancestry. Their faces were the same, their principles were the same, and their interests were almost identical. So they came, not as strangers, but as kinsmen asking kinsmen to come and help them to celebrate the greatest achievement in the material history of the world. Ihey came as messengers who bore a letter not from a king, but from kingly men—from President Wilson and Mr W. J. Bryan, the greatest moral force to-day in America, if not m the whole world. The achievement which they were to celebrate was the most extensive, as it was the one bringing in le<ist advantage to the United States. The short road to India had been found after 400 years of waiting by cutting the isthmus, and it was also the short road to New Zealand and Australia There were trade avenues to he opened, and commerce was the most enduring of all empires and the most important. He did not want them to think that he was false to his own country, hut if they could present on that stage the possibilities of their country to the people of the United States and to the world they might have not, as he had said on the previous night, another million of people, but another 20 millions, as Mr O'Neil , Sevier had said.—(Applause.) Mr Stallsmith, the chief executive ofhcer in connection with the agricultural department of the exposition, said that what little he had already seen of New Zealand had made him very much in love with the country. Speaking in regard to the situation of the exposition he said it occupied a piece of land about ti\o mdes lon<* and half a mile wide, running along the shore of San Francisco harbour, and it covered a ground space of about 635 acres. The exposition was divided into 11 departments, to be contained in 11 separate extensive palaces, comprising fine arts, education, social economy, liberal arts, manufactures machinery, agriculture, horticulture, live stock mines, and metal l ur oy. Among other produce the United States had imported from New Zealand thousands of tons of wool, hemp, kauri gum. and dairy produce. A very extensive trade "might be built up with the United States in these and other articles, and it appeared to him that the Panama Exposition offered a unique opportunity to the people of New Zealand to bring their produce under the notice of the American public. Mr E. Clifton, of Wellington, had been appointed by the Prime Minister to come and meet them, and he would have with him everything in the shape of literature in connection with the exposition. Mr Clifton, in seconding the vote of thanks proposed by the Mayor and conveyed to the speakers by acclamation, said he had the assurance of' the Prime Minister that he realised the enormous advantage that would come to the dominion by participation in the Panama Exposition. He was not able to give details of what the Government proposed to do in the matter of this country’s representation at the exposition, but' the commissioners would meet the Prime Minister on Saturday, when it \y.ould be discussed.