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General Manager's Message
New Zealand Centennial Exhibition and Celebrations

This month of November is to see the commencement of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, a prelude and principal feature of the 1940 Centennial Year.

The celebrations associated with the completion of the country's first hundred years of development under the British flag are designed to commemorate the work of the pioneers and to do honour to those who gave us the fullness and freedom of life as we know it here to-day.

Although a war has started, involving all parts of the Empire, the decision to “carry on” with the Exhibition and related activities is true patriotism, for it shows determination that those who have done so much for us in the past shall not be forgotten in the present —fraught with difficulties though it be.

Thus, the Centennial celebrations become a dedication to the cause for which the makers of New Zealand lived and died—freedom and justice, fair play and opportunity for all. They express a determination that nothing shall stop the progress the pioneers began so nobly and which their children have carried along with such soundness that to-day we stand one of the most favoured of nations in all that goes to make life worth living.

Among those whose work we celebrate, none are more notable than the pioneers of our Railways. I have many times paid tribute to those who made the Railways the dependable, stable force for good we know them to be in the industrial and social life of the country. We railwaymen of the present generation inherited a service, and a tradition of service, that called for our best efforts to maintain and amplify. How well we have done this let our work for Centennial Year prove.

I think the public will find that we are prepared as never before to meet their transport needs during the coming year, despite the diversion of a considerable proportion of our plant and activities for purposes directly concerned with the war.

Each district has its own good reasons for local celebration, and for all of these the Department is making adequate transport arrangements. But the biggest effort of all, the Centennial Exhibition at Wellington, is expected to make the greatest call on the Department's resources in both Islands; and for this, special arrangements have been made to ensure as far as possible that all who desire to visit the Exhibition may be provided with the opportunity to use the Department's rail or road services as and when desired.

Having personally visited the Exhibition in its almost completed state, I believe that all who come to Wellington during the period the Exhibition is to be open will be delighted with what they see and with the entertainment available.

The displays of New Zealand and Empire products, the historical and scenic features, and the replicas of present-day national activities, are on a scale and of an excellence to impress any visitor with the glory of New Zealand's development in the hundred years since the Treaty of Waitangi made Briton and Maori partners in this country. For that reason the Exhibition will serve to revive and strengthen those sentiments of patriotism that make for good citizenship.

General Manager.