Sessional_Paper_1928 — Page 6

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The money was never paid: and a very pressing request from the British Empire Exhibition Authorities that we should forego it was duly forwarded to Hong Kong, with the suggestion that the matter deserved favourable consideration but should remain in abeyance until it was seen how the Colony's Exhibition Account shaped when closed. In the bankrupt condition of the British Empire Exhibition finances, it seems useless to carry the matter further.

4. It is not possible to make any useful comparison between the work and the ex- penditure of the two years, as the conditions were essentially different, apart from the fact that the cost of buildings fell almost entirely on the 1924 account. In that year all the Hong Kong exhibitors financed their own supplies of stock, fixed their own prices, and were entitled to the return less various agreed percentages: all expenses including freight and wages were a charge on the Exhibition Vote. With such favourable condi tions, added to the enthusiasm evoked by the Exhibition in 1924 throughout the Empire, there is reason to think that the large majority of our exhibitors had no reason to regret their participation.

In 1925, the financing of stock and the whole conduct of the sales of the Section was made the direct business of the Government, all the Chinese employed being on fixed salaries with no further financial interest in the Exhibition. The whole atmosphere had however changed between 1924 and 1925 (as will be explained later), and the strike and boycott conditions obtaining in Kwong Tung made it impossible to renew supplies as had been done in 1924. Nearly all the favourable conditions of 1924 were absent: and while our original consignment of goods (well selected by Messrs. Harry Wicking and Company, the official buying agents) found a reasonably ready sale no replace- ments were possible. Even with that one consignment we had at the beginning to break down the reputation for exorbitant charges which was a legacy from 1924: indeed it was a realisation of the danger of allowing the reputation to continue that was partly responsible for making 1925 a purely Government effort, with prices kept within bounds. Later on, it became rather a question of withholding certain lines of goods, to prevent the shops standing empty, as dealers made efforts to buy practically the whole stock. They had begun by charging us with underselling them at uneconomical rates: our answer was to lay our figures before them, and to challenge proof of the charge. The challenge was not accepted for our replacement difficulty became early apparent and if our stocks in hand could be got out of the way, there was no further danger from us. Facts and figures prepared against enquiries were rendered useless by the new condi- tions at this end, and interest at once faded when there was no answer to the first question asked which was always the probable date of delivery.

5. The British Isles as a whole took a very much smaller interest in the British Empire Exhibition in 1925 than had been shewn in 1924. An enormous organisation of excursions by train and char á banc and bus was an outstanding feature of 1924: all roads led to Wembley and in addition to the general traffic, very large numbers of schools and similarly coherent bodies were personally conducted through the Exhibition. (Parties were invariably labelled from a very early stage, a necessary precaution to facilitate the recovery of waifs and strays). Remarkable public enthusiasm was shewn in the first year, but the methods of advertisement and propaganda which were then so successful failed to keep the 1925 interest at the same standard. The transport com- panies could not take again the risks of dislocating their ordinary arrangements: and excursions to holiday resorts and the seaside again assumed their usual proportion.

6. The general atmosphere surrounding the 1925 Exhibition did not make for a public attendance on the 1924 scale. There had been an unfortunate delay in deciding to repeat the Exhibition: and meanwhile the British Isles Exhibitors removed their Exhibits, and were not prepared to incur the great expense of reinstating them. The Palace of Engineering, in 1924 a feature that it will be hard ever to equal, was empty except for the Railway Centenary Exhibition in one small section and a few aeroplanes in another: with Ford Trucks and Cars being constructed in yet another. These exhibits left the enormous Palace practically empty, and though another section became barracks for the troops employed in the Tattoo, it was still a desert. The Palace of Industry on the other hand was moderately full, but compared with 1924 it was sparsely occupied and the whole standard of exhibits was much lower. On the grounds generally, a very large number of the kiosques, and of the smaller shops round the Entrance Arcade and on London Bridge, were unoccupied throughout 1925. An attraction of a new kind was however provided by the Military Tattoo which day after day filled the enormous seating accommodation of the Stadium with unqualified success.