WONDERFUL PROGRESS

Southland Times, Issue 23998, 13 December 1939, Page 20

WONDERFUL PROGRESS

—The Prime Minister. /AM glad to comply with the request for a personal message for publication in The Southland Times upon the occasion of the New Zealand Centennial Royal Show at Invercargill. The province of Southland will, I feel certain, prove worthy of the honour of organizing and presenting an historic exhibition. There are two special reasons why a great effort should be made this year to display in attractive form the resources of the country. First, in view of the war necessities of the United Kingdom, the importance of agricultural production cannot be over-emphasized,. and, second, the association of the Royal Show with the celebrations of New Zealand’s first centenary provides an opportunity for displaying the wonderful progress that has been achieved in our farming industries within a hundred years. Many older nations might well envy the extent and richness of this young nation’s development.

It is like carrying coals to Newcastle to urge upon a farming community the importance of the agricultural and pastoral industries in the national economy, but the needs and emergencies of the present time call for more and still more primary products of the highest quality. The New Zealand Royal Centennial Show will demonstrate

the value of the farming industries and the improved quality of live-stock—one of the principal aims of the Royal Agricultural Society which has done so much to promote that essential development. While the show itself will reveal modern agricultural trends, the features of the Southland countryside will recall to many people the splendid work of the pioneers, whose achievements deserve centennial commemoration. I hope that the anxieties caused by international conditions will not diminish the optimism of Southland’s people and that they all will do their utmost to make the Centennial Royal Show an outstanding success. M. J. SAVAGE, Prime Minister. Wellington.