238 MISCELLANEOUS, 



improved means of production to others. Since 1851 almost every producing 

 country in Europe, many of our colonies, and America, have recognized the impor- 

 tance and necessity for holding such industrial gatherings. The nature of the 

 articles produced for home consumption and foreign markets can best be made 

 known by such Exhibitions, and they serve as finger-posts in the history of indus- 

 trial progress. The producing powers of our colonies demand of England that 

 their capabilities to supply the markets of the world with every description of 

 produce should be made known periodically in the metropolis of the empire. The 

 products of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms are better understood and 

 more closely studied now than formerly, and are daily adding new substances and 

 increased comforts for our use, and such Exhibitions tend to direct the mind of 

 working communities to peaceable occupations and competitions, and thereby 

 induce more friendly interchanges with foreign nations. 



WHAT IT SHOULD BE. 



The Exhibition of 1851 has been described as a piece of barbaric pomp— of 

 gorgeous colours and heaped-up wealth, and not a museum of Western progress. 

 How far such a description is correct the public can judge ; it must, however, be 

 the object of the Society of Arts, in cari'ving out the Exhibition of 1861, to place 

 it before the world in such a form as shall leave no doubt as to its being an Exhi- 

 bition illustrative of progress. In order to the attainment of that end, it must in 

 every respect be a People's Exhibition, paid for by the people's shillings. The 

 results of the Exhibition of 1851 are conclusive evidence that no necessity exists 

 for special subscriptions or government subsidy. It should be an educational 

 exhibition, enabling us by comparison, in classes, to see wherein we are deficient 

 as a manufacturing nation, and in what direction to look for improved appliances 

 or raw materials, thereby enabling us Lhe better to compete with foreign producers. 

 It must teach us what the people of other lands appreciate, and would purchase 

 from us, if produced by our manufacturers, thereby extending the trade of the 

 country and opening up commerce in directions at present little supplied ; as in 

 the case of the Indian market, where, to quote the words of Colonel Sykes, Chair- 

 man of the East India Company, " Very little of the personal clothing of 

 150,000,000 of people in India is exported to India, and none of it in the form of 

 fabrics in which the articles of clothing are worn, an omission which the manufac- 

 turers of England might surely supply." It should be a Universal or Free Trade 

 Exhibition, so far as is consistent with the laws of the country. It should be a 

 Comparative Exhibition — the cottons of Manchester and Glasgow side by side 

 with those of France and America — the linens of Ireland by those of Belgium — 

 the wools of England, Australia, and Thibet in close proximity. 



It should be a Classified Exhibition : how entirely distinct must it be then from 

 the Exhibition of 1851. Who that had occasion to collect the information contain- 

 ed in that Exhibition, as every member of the press who wrote for the guidance 

 and instruction of the public had, but felt the want of classification ? To have 

 been able to have compared the porcelain of Sevres, Belgium, Austria, Dresden, 

 Berlin, and Prussia, with that of Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and other parts of 

 the United Kingdom, what an incomparable advantage would it have been ! How 



