AUCKLAND’S APPRECIATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 28

AUCKLAND’S APPRECIATION.

-TitE COMMISSIONER’S OPINIONS. “ My impressions from the provincial court point of view? Certainly,” said Mr A. T. Brainsby, Auckland’s Commissioner, yesterday, when asked for a final opinion on the Exhibition and its achievements. “To begin with,” he said, “your request is a happy illustration of one feature that has greatly impressed me; I mean the ready spirit of mutual co-operation. The directorate, staff, and press have taken an active interest in us, been ar.xious to help us, and sustained their readiness to assist right through, though it would be quite excusable if the heaped up responsibilities of the closing days had imposed a diminuendo on this generous and courteous consideration. It is a part of the singular friendliness we have felt all along. The police, post office, the night watchmen and workmen, and the day staff have all manifested the same spirit, and believe me, it is sincerely appreciated. Nor is it confined to the Exhibition. Recognising that many of us were away from home, and working long hours each week day, Dunedin has opened its homes to us on Sundays with an almost embarrassing number of invitations week after week, hospitality that thoughtfully included motor and launch trips that enabled us to see the glorious scenery of the city and district under the most delightful conditions of guidance and sociability. Dunedin is complete in all it does, and its hospitality has the authentic note of a Highland welcome. “Next to this, I have been struck with the good feeling that has prevailed between the courts. Sometimes, I suppose, vre provincial representatives have encountered zealous partisans of a particular district who fondly thought their own

court was cuhanccd by a criticism of other couitr. 1 do not in the least agree with the saying that comparisons are odious. They may be when they violate good taste, but mostly they help us to extend our knowledge and improve our methods, and 1 think we have learned a great deal by friendly comparison, but we have never experienced any acerbity in our interprov.ncial relations, and always the minor chords of rivalry nave resolved into the major consciousness that we were all one in a common concern for the increased prosperity of the Dominion. “But this is not exactly what you have asked for. You want. 1 "ather, some estimate of the probable good accomplished by the court I represent? “Well, so far as the Auckland Court is concerned I think it has done a great, deal to make known, and better known, the wide unpeopled spaces of New Zealand’s largest and most northerly province, to impress many thousands with a des : re to visit and see its' sunny- wonderlands of scenic '•harm, and to suggest some possibilities of increasing trade interchange between distinctive products of the north and south. “The scheme to educate visiting children by lectures from commissionere was a stroke of genius, and too much cannot be said in commendation of those whose arduous labours have carried it out so successfully I only regret that it was not possible for the scheme to include children of the Auckland province The British Court alone, properly appreciated, was a university course in Imperial history. Its impressive panorama of glorious achievements could hardly be contemplated without a sense of sober pride in our heritage and some not ignoble stirrings of resolve and emulation. “But I am wandering from the point. One of our most valuable opportunities in the Auckland Court has been in the ex plantory talks to the children, and the distribution of the Provincial Handbook, which the Auckland Committee provided free of charge. This book has been asked for and supplied to several schools, where the chance copies taken back from the Exhibition have attracted interest*. 1 attention, and ,we have received several letters of appreciation. From this work among the men and women of the next generation it is not unreasonable to exnect a recurring harvest for many years to come. Important knowledge of the whole vinee has been widely diffused, and manyparts less known, as in the Waitcmo County, the Bay of Plenty, the Waikato, and North Auckland, have secured the beginning of that recognition which their climate, fertility, wealth of undeveloped resource®, and sound opportunities invite. “The Waitomo Caves, for instance, are well known as one of the seven wonders of the world, but the commercial, agricultural and pastoral possibilities of the Waitomo County are not nearly known as they deserve to be. since they are among the most promising openings for development in the province. The same may be said of North Auckland, with its glorious rivers and and harbours. Colonisation began in North -'uckland and it may be vet, consummated there. Russell was known as New Zealand’s first capital, and widely famed for it.s sword fishing, but this field of marine sport is distributed along tile coast from Whangaroa to the Bay of Plenty, with lesser known bases at the chief ports Again. Whangarei was .recognised as one of the coming towns of the Dominion, with a reputation for sound enterprise and steady growth that assure its future. “Rotorua, again, while enjoying nre eminent attention for its tourist attractions, has not been so well known for its fertile possibilities in agricultural and pastoral development. The Waikato, Hamilton, Te Aroha (famed like Rotorua as a spa), the Thames district and the Bay of Plenty are all represented in the court, and much information has been given in response to inquiries stimulated by their exhibits. This is specially so in regard to the maize display from Whakatane and the Tauranga citrus exhibit. The fruit and citrus exhibits from all parts of the province, together with the orange and lemon orchard actually flourishing and in bearing in the court, have done a great deal to onen trade and develop confidence in this Dominion product, which the North is endeavouring, with every studious use of scientific knowledge and method, to bring to a perfection unsurpassed bv imported lemons from cither It ' ’ or California. “Auckland City, with its ever-extending and beautiful environs, was. of course, well known, but the remarkable group of Auckland panoramas, depicting all aspects of the city’s amazing progress, in its libraries, electric power. ’hour extension, marine suburbs like Takapuna. and its general development were a source of continual interest and —well, I was to say admiration,. and I think it •s +rne. but it was sometimes tempered with caustic criticism. Mine not to make "enly, but permit me this. Elizabeth was very much criticised: she was also a ver** great Queen, and all England was richer for the expansion she helped to foster. Which thing is a parable su'’~ecjtine a concluding observation. New Zealand is one body, and no part can sav to another. ‘I have no need of thee/ The friendly •o-oneration and essential unity of the provincial courts has been at once an expression and prophecy of a disappearing provincialism. “This last thought reminds me. if I have not already trespassed upon your space, of the kindness the Auckland Court lias received in the care "f its orchard from Mr Reed, and in the supply of flowers by Miss Martin and the ladies of the Otago Court, two illustrations of the co-operation I have mentioned, concerning the whole of which my executive, Mr J. Findlay, the secretary of the court, and Mr T. G. Price, chairman of the Exhibits Committee, would wish me to record their cordial appreciation.”