- 37 — 
THE WORLD’S FALRS 
tractor, instead of being distributed, as an 
encouragement, to the trade in general. 
The plans tliat were adopted left butlittle 
room for the exercise of the inventive in- 
genuity of the individual exhibitors in the 
arrangement of their goods. The interests, 
most directly concerned, were, therefore, 
made secondary to the above-mentioned 
patriotic purpose, and the chief attraction 
of exhibitions, diversity, was almost sacri- 
ficed in the German department to the 
contrary principle, uniformity. 
Many persons who, like the writer, are 
declared partisans of centralisation, when 
applied to the means of communication, 
the arteries of trade, consider it a serious 
mistake whenever that principle is al- 
lowed to encroach directly on the domaiu 
of commerce and indnstry. We, therefore, 
consider it a mistaken conception of the 
duties of an Exhibition Commission, when 
they determine the dress, as it were, in 
which the national products are to present 
themselves. The manufacturer himself 
knows best which is the most ad vantage- 
ous manner of displaying his goods. 
The Commission, as the intermediary 
between the General Direction and the 
exhibitors, should give every possible 
latitude to individual initiative, and not 
try to force it into a straight jacket, by