FIRST REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS.

xxiii

Special Commissioners (Dr. Lyon Playfair and Lieut . Colonel Lloyd) were appointedto communicate with the Local Committees, and were employed in visiting manytowns in the course of their preparations for the collection and transmission ofarticles to the Exhibition. The instructions given to these gentlemen were asfollow:—

“ 1. To visit the several districts and enter into personal communication with tlio LocalCommittees, for the purpose of assisting them in arranging a system of general organizationfor the effective selection and rejection of articles proposed to bo exhibited. 2. To afford tothe Local Committees information on any points already determined by Her Majesty’s Com-missioners, or on those relative to which any uncertainty may exist; or which, from localcircumstances, it may bo considered advisable to modify in any degree. 3. To collect thegenoral opinions of persons of local experience with respect to the best ordinary products ofeach district, and the probablo bulk or extent to bo transmitted from each locality.”

The Commissioners cannot speak too strongly of the valuable assistance which inevery part of their duties they received from the Local Committees. To give anidea of the arduous duties which devolved up on them, a summary of the proceedingsof some of the Committees is given in Appendix No. VII.

Communications with Foreign Countries and Colonies.

After having thus provided for a good local organization in the United Kingdom ,the Commissioners directed their attention to the subject of foreign and colonialcommunications, and, at their first meeting, ordered letters to be addressed to the►Secretaries of State for Foreign and Colonial Affairs, requesting them to notifythe issue of the Royal Commission to foreign powers, and to the colonies, and torequest that the Commissioners might be put in communication with such personsor bodies in each country as might best represent those who were likely to beinterested in the Exhibition. A similar communication was addressed to theDirectors of the Honourable East India Company . These communications werepromptly responded to. Commissions were appointed, or Committees formed, in30 foreign countries and 11 of the British colonies, the names of which will befound in Appendix No. VIII. The Commissioners also received the most energeticsupport from the East India Company , both at the commencement, and throughoutthe duration of their labours.

Extent of the Exhibition.

There not being any time to be lost in commencing the Building, it was impossibleto make any extensive inquiries as to the amount of articles likely to be tenderedfor Exhibition, and it was therefore necessary to lay down some arbitrary rule uponthe subject. The Commissioners accordingly decided upon fixing the area of theRuilding at about 800,000 square feet, or nearly twenty acres, a space betweenthree and four times as large as that occupied by any previous exhibition abroad.'I’he space thus fixed was increased during the execution of the project to rathermore than 1,000,000 square feet.