96
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
tion, and has acquired some respect for the working of the former, but none for the latter; he is also of opinion that public opinion agrees with his own, for he has been quite unable to ascertain that even a shadow of value is attached to the certificates of admission. It is of considerable importance that the local and foreign commissions should exercise a power of selection over the exhibits, for which space is claimed from them, so that the real purposes and interests of the exhibition be not perverted to the advertisement of common and uninteresting materials. As a rule, this need only be suggested to the various Commissions, for their national pride is ordinarily sufficient to keep them from lowering the character of their nations in the eyes of the world by introducing exhibits discreditable to the general collection.
On the whole, the jury regulations carried out at the Vienna Exhibition were good, but they acted badly in very many cases, owing to the mischievous system of control over their decisions, and the very indefinite nature of the prizes.
The number of the jurors was, according to Eule V., regulated by the number of exhibitors in each group; no fairer plan can be devised, but the method of carrying it out had one objection. The regulation as it stood was as follows
For every 10 to 100 exhibitors, .
. . one juror.
“ 101 to 200 “
« . two jurors.
“ 201 to 300 “
. . three jurors
“ 301 to 400* “
. . four jurors.
And so on.
Now, the fault in this arrangement is in the first line, for, as a rule, there are the fewest exhibitors of the most important things. Take, for instance, the case of Great Britain in the Vienna Exhibition : In Group 1, stone-ware, porcelain and glass, she had but thirty-six exhibitors, but amongst them there were the Mintons, the Eoyal Worcester Works, Messrs. Copeland, Wedgwood, Pillatt, Green and others, who are t quite unsurpassed in their productions ; but by this law, they and their immense interests were only represented by one juror; whilst France had three ; Germany , three ; Japan, two; Austria and Hungary , seven, and so on. Now, as it