No articles of foreign manufacture, to whomsoever they may belong, or wheresoever they may be, can be admitted for exhibition, unless they come with the sanction of the Central Authority of the country of which they are the produce. The Commissioners do not insist upon such articles being in all cases actually forwarded by the Central Authority, though they consider that this would generally be the most satisfactory arrangement; but it is indispensable that the sanction of such Authority should in all cases be expressly given, and that it be held responsible for the fitness of such articles for exhibition, and for not authorising the exhibition of a greater quantity than can be accommodated in the space assigned to the productions of the country in question.

With regard to the amount of space that can be given, the Commissioners propose at once to communicate with each foreign country. It must be obvious that the difficulty of fixing the amount in each case is extreme, as the Commissioners have to consider, not only the extent and population of each country, but the nature of the articles it produces, the quantities it is likely to send; which of course involves, among other considerations, the question of proximity and of the facilities for transmission to England. The productions sent will in some cases be bulky, and will require a larger amount of space than the produce likely to come from other countries, though the latter may be much the more valuable. It thus becomes impossible, in the absence of information from each country, to lay down rules which shall not be open to objection. At the same time, the Commissioners feel that it is better at once to give a definite and tangible shape to their proceedings by laying down something in the nature of a rule, however arbitrary, than to postpone the attempt till they are in possession of information which cannot be collected for a very long time. They have therefore resolved that they will allot one-half of the total amount of space at their command to the productions of Great Britain and her colonies, and will divide the remaining half among the other nations of the world; communicating to each country the space they propose to set aside for its productions, and requesting information as to the mode in which it is proposed that such space should be filled. In case the Central Authority in any country should be of opinion that the space allotted to the productions of that country is greater than it will require, the Commissioners have to request that this opinion may be communicated to them, as it is obvious that it would not appear well if a large vacant space should be left in the department assigned to any country. If, on the other hand, any country require more than the space proposed, this also should be stated, as it may be in the power of the Commissioners to give additional room, in the event of having received notifications from other countries that a portion of the space assigned to them will not be occupied.

The Commissioners have had under their serious consideration the question whether it would be desirable to mark off particular spaces, and assign them to particular countries, allowing each to arrange the whole of its productions within those limits; but they adhere to the conclusion which they have already announced, that this course will not be desirable, and that it will be necessary that the productions of all nations should be exhibited together, according to the classification of objects which the Commissioners have made with a subordinate classification as to nations in each section. They consider that the effect which the Exhibition is intended to produce—of showing, at one view, the points which human industry and ingenuity have reached in the arts of civilized life—would be materially diminished if the results of the industry of different nations in each department were scattered over a large space instead of being conveniently brought together. The Visitor would receive a very inadequate notion of the perfection to which particular manufactures can be carried from an inspection of those of one nation only; and in a building of such extent it would be out of his power to go from a particular section in one Exhibition to the corresponding sections in all the other national Exhibitions, and to compare them all. Again, unless the productions of all nations are exhibited together, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to award the palm of superiority. Different parts of the Exhibition will be visited on different days, and the impressions made on one day by the manufactures of one country, will be effaced the next day by the corresponding manufactures of another. In the adjudication of Prizes also such arrangements would cause much difficulty.

Another objection may also be mentioned, namely, the danger there would be of imputed unfairness and favouritism in the places assigned to different nations. The several articles which will be exhibited will require great diversity of accommodation, as respects space, light, and other particulars; and were the space set apart for one nation inferior in any of these respects to the space set apart for any other nation, there would be ground for complaint; whereas, if all articles of the same nature are exhibited together, all will share these advantages alike, and each article will be placed in that part of the building which is best adapted for the reception of goods of that description. The Commissioners must therefore reserve to themselves the unfettered right of arranging all goods that may be sent in such manner as they may think proper. They will endeavour, in the case of articles the nature of which admits of their so doing, to arrange each section with some reference to the nationality of the productions exhibited in it, and will not intermix the productions of one country with those of another, in cases where the objects of the Exhibition can be attained without their doing so. Whatever may be their arrangements, however, they undertake to find places for all articles sent by each country which could, if placed together, be exhibited in the aggregate space allotted to that country, provided only