NEED FOR A HALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 234, 2 October 1929, Page 4

NEED FOR A HALL

UP-TO-DATE SHOW BUILDINGS HOUSING an Industrial Exhibition One of the outstanding features of Wanganui Empire Trade Week 1929 is the Industrial Trade Exhibition to be staged in the Drill Hall. This will give an inkling of the energy which has gone to build up local industries, the public being afforded an opportunity of viewing what it is possible to manufacture within the city itself. Empire Trade Week, wherever it has been instituted, has developed slowly but with definite sureness. In Wanganui, in the first year, it was little beyond a window dressing competition. The start was effective, however, and there sprang from that beginning a desire to launch out as far as it was possible to do and enlist the cooperation of the manufacturers. The difficulty, in the initial stages, was obtaining a suitable hall, arrangements having to be made with the Defence Department for the use of their premises in Maria Place. This reveals a sad state of affairs so far as Wanganui is concerned. Lack of accommodation for such an undertaking and of space to house exhibits at the Winter Show has never been so keenly felt as at present. The Winter Show this year was a success. It, too, was built from small beginnings, but the time has arrived vhen it should be launched out still further. To take the first step in such an object would be the acquirement of adaptable buildings. Schemes have been mooted from time to time and endeavours made to enlist the sympathy of the Government and the City Council, a degree of success being achieved in that direction. The promotion of Empire Trade Week this year under its wider scope makes the need for further action all the more imperative. It is to hoped that the city will be able to look forward with

confidence to the establishment of an up-to-date hall and show buildings in a not very distant future. Nothing daunted, nothing done.