A Workmen’s Exhibition.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7294, 25 August 1893, Page 3

A Workmen’s Exhibition.

A Workmen’s Exhibition was opened in the Agricultural Hall, London, in July. The general secretary, Mr GK Bhipton, being asked wbat wasjgoing to be shown there replied : “We are going to gather together the very best specimens of the work of our most highly skilled workmen in all departments of art and commerce, in order to show England and the world what the British workman is capable of doing. We do not intend to have on show more novelties or toys, but specimens of the useful arts made by men and women who have to work every day for their daily bread. Our exhibition will bo grouped into fourteen sections—the building, silversmiths, goldsmiths, and jewellers, printing and lithographing, leather, clothing, engineering and metal, milling andjbaking, furnishing, brush and basket, shipping, tobacco working, glass and pottery, and textile trades. There will also be a group for women’s industries We want to do something to raise the s'andard of British work, and to improve its condition by stopping the mad rush for low priced articles, regardless of whether they are made in either an artistic or durable manner. We want to educate the public taste, and let it sec the difference between good, honest work, and shoddy. We believe it will be found that, so far as our own workpeople are concerned, they are still ! capable cf producing ai highly-skilled work as ever they were. All that is wanted is a public demand for, and an appreciation of, good work. 'Wo realise that thoroughness of work has for years been greatly declining. We are driven, in this age of competition and hurry, to°eoamp our work, to the injury of our national reputation as workmen, and to the hurt of our natural love for (.pr work, with its attendant anxiety to turn out good, solid, endi rwg work We realise that thorough, ess in wort, wlLh for yetrs has been declining, cannot be restored if we nmain quiescent in our workshops. We mu-t do someth ng to fduoa'e public taste.”