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 APPENDIX D.

THE ART EXHIBITION.

The Viceroy's speech at the opening of the Art Exhibition was as follows : — Your Royal Highnesses, Your Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, — It is now my pleasant duty to proceed to the first of the functions of the present fortnight, and to declare open the Delhi Art Exhibition. A good many of our visitors would scarcely believe that almost everything that we see before us, except the trees, is the creation of the last eight months. When I came here in April last to select the site, there was not a trace of this great building, of these terraces, and of all the amenities that we now see around. They have all sprung into existence for the sake of this Exhibition, and though the effects of the Exhibition will, I hope, not be so quickly wiped out, the mise'en-sckne is, I am sorry to say, destined to disappear.

Perhaps you will expect me to say a few words about the circumstances in which this Exhibition started into being. Ever since I have been in India I have made a careful study of the art industries and handicrafts of this country, once so famous and beautiful, and I have lamented, as many others have done, their progressive deterioration and decline. When it was settled that we were to hold this great gathering at Delhi, at which there would be assembled representatives of every Province and State in India, Indian Princes and Chiefs and Nobles, high officials. Native gentlemen, and visitors from all