THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1862.

Taranaki Herald, Volume X, Issue 491, 28 December 1861, Page 4

THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1862.

[From the Times, September 9.1 It has been said that international industrial exhibitions have a natural tendency to deyelope.and < enlarge themselves with each succeeding display. The truth of this remark is being strikingly .exemplified by the wide spread preparations now making in all departments of science, arts, and manufacturers for the great event of next year ; and it is Still more forcibly shown in the efforts of the colonies to be properly represented in the forthcoming display. The weak point of the Exhibition of 1851 was the colonial department. As a whole the colonies were almost unrepresented. The notice given was too short; the object of the undertaking was new, and not well understood, and few of the colonies were in a position to go to much' expense for contributions. Thus it was that out of the 33,500 feet of horizontal space allotted to the British Colonies in 1851, only 6,180 feet were thinly occupied. The Indian conrt it is true, made a grand display of rich and gaudy wares, but the products and manufactures — the material wealth, in short, of our gigantic colonial .possessions, were' either inadequately represented or not represented at all. Now, all this will^be changed next year. The tiuth of the theory of the 'natural . development of these Exhibitions showed itself in the Paris Exhibition of 1858. Then our colonies not only appreciated the objects of the Exhibition, but, what was more important, understood what they had lost by being so imperfectly represented in 1851. The result was that at Paris in 1853, there was a finer colonial display than in London in 1851, and in the Exhibition of next year there will be such a show of colonial products? and manufactures as has never yet been gathered under one roof before. AU, even to our most distant dependencies, are making such efforts to be well represented next year as almost apparently to sutpass the interest taken in the scheme at home. The Canadian Government has voted 8,0007. towards the expenses of properly representing that grand colony ; Cape Colony will give 5,0001. ; British Columbia 2,000/. ; Queensland 2,0007. ; Tasmania 2,0002. ; New South Wales 3,000/., and 5,0007. for an exhibition of gold ; Victoria gives 10,000/.; New Brunswick 1,6007.; British Guiana f,OOO, and proportionate sums will be voted by nearly all the other colonial legislatures throughout the world. The idea of the gold exhibition of the Australian Colonies is an admirable one. For the first time the English public will see a properly arranged and classified exhibition of the various deposits of the precious metal, the discovery of which has in ten short years raised Australia from the position of an outlying colony and convict dep6t to a series of powerful and wealthy States. It is not to be a mere display of nuggets ; on the contrary, the nuggets that are to be sent as specimens are to be limited in weight to 6 ounces. It is to be a display not only of the various forms in which the rich auriferpus yield is found, but also of all the machines and implements by which it is worked at ,the diggings. Thus there will be gold earth and gold sand, with the methods of washing it, gold quartz of every grade of richness, from 3oz. to the ton, till the lumps of metal at last emerge in an .eruption of pure nuggets upon the surface of the earth. Towards this display New South Wales gives 5,000/., and the settlement of Victoria 5,0007., with 5,0007. more for the general purposes of exhibitors. Let those who affect to complain that ten years is too short a space of time to intervene between these Exhibitions think of this munificent grant of the Victorian Legislature, and of the pro. gress made by that colony during the last decade. In 1851, Victoria was just starting into existence as a distinct colony. Its population was then short of .80,000 ; it had barely 60,000 .acres of land under , cultivation ; its annual imports were barely a million, and its exports short of 1,400,0007. Now its , population's nearly 700,000, its exports exceed in value 15,000,0007. annually, , and its imports are as large, while more than 400,000 acres of .land are ■ under cultivation. The colonists own upwards of . 7,000,000 head of cattle, and have sent gold to the mother country to the value of 110,000,0007. sterling. Nor is it only in Victoria that we see this'astounding progress in the ten years that has intervened. Port Philip, which in 1851 'had only just been erected into a separate colony, is now the great settlement of the group. Moreton Bay has within the last two years become a-great, prosperous, and independent colony, under thename of Queensland*; Van Diemen's Land no longer exists, but in its stead is the wealthy and thriving settlement of Tasmania, and even the beautiful Norfolk Islands are •no more the most dreaded of all penal settlements, but have been colonised by the Pitcairn Islanders, to whom a romantic interest still attaches as the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty, who kept up their primitive simplicity and isolation till .they outgrew the limits of their first island home. We live fast now-a-days, and ten years is a huge epoch in the rapid history of colonial enterprise and progress. There are now railways and telegraphs to towns in Australia which ten years back were only stations with sheep tracks through the bush. Steamers are plying on the Munay and the Darling, and Queensland, British Columbia, and Van- . couver's Island have since the last Exhibition \teen admitted into that great family of communities which constitute the gigantic empire of the British colonies. v,

If there are any among the members of this sys. tern of dependencies which show less zeal in the Exhibition than the rest they are to be found among the West Indian colonies. Sugar now and cotton for the future seem not unnaturally to occupy all their thoughts at present, and more interest is evinced among the people of the Sandwich Islands, at Hayti, in Japan, the South Sea Isles, the Fejees, in Liberia, and along the settlements of the West Coast of Africa, than among the inhabitants of the greatest of the Antilles. Mr. Rutherford Alcock is sending home a superb collection of objects from Japan, principally of China lacquer ware, and textile fabrics, with scientific and agricultural implements, raw products, &c. To this display, Her Majesty will contribute from the Windsor armoury the magnificent weapons and armour which were lately sent to her as a present from the Tycoon. Our Indian empire was last time represented by the display put forth by the Company. This time Dr. Forbes Watson is intrusted with gathering together a grand collection of the, staples of that great empire, and it is said that the collection will be one of the most valuable and most varied that has ever been brought together. The Indian empire does not come within the space assigned for the colonial display, but will, as in 1851, have a separate cotitt

to jtself. In all, 12,000 feet of horizontal space has been given up to the colonies proper. Judging from present applications, at least twice that amount is demanded and expected, and the Commissioners apparently will have to enlarge the area at first decided on. On all sides arises the clamour for more room, and yet more. The theory of development on which the Commissioners have depended has been rather more than realized, yet, as their belief in the theory has not taken the practical form of erecting a building large enough to meet what they tightly said would be the increased demand, it necessarily follows that a numerous minority of the late applicants" will be disappointed altogether. There is not one-fourth more space for exhibitors than in 1851, yet about ten times the amount is wanted.- England alone has sent in demands which amount to twice the contents of the whole structure, and France complains that she has about a tenth of the space required for what she must exhibit. Of all our large cities, Dublin seems the most apathetic on the subject, as compared with its size and importance ; but few applications have yet come in, and none whatever will be entertained. after the 30th of this mouth. The 12th of February next lias been fixed on as the date when exhibitorSxjnay begin to send in their objects, and the Commissioners will receive them from that time till the end of March. After March nothing whatever will be admitted either from home or abroad, no. matter from what cause the delay may have arisen., There will thus be one clear month, during which those in charge of the building can proceed uninterruptedly in the proper arrangement and display of all the works of arts and manufactures. If this rule is strictly adhered to there is no fear of a repetition of the hurry, confusion, and half finished state in the midst of which the Exhibition of 1851 was opened.