N.Z. ANNUAL DINNER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 183, 5 August 1925, Page 20

N.Z. ANNUAL DINNER.

iiABL JELMCOE CHIEF GUEST. DOMINION WOOL THE WARMEST. (From Out Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 23. For many years before the war, New Zealand business men in London were in the habit of holding a dinner once a year, not merely in order to meet each other, but also that they might entertain members of the firms with which they did business. Naturally the war put an,end to the pleasant custom, and this year it was renewed with the happiest results. Captain L. E. L. Donne, of Messrs. Hamer and Co., who acted as Honorary secretary of the committee, tells us that, having anticipated a eatherin<* of 150, so enthusiastically wae | the idea taken up, that double that number sat down last night to dinner. The question whether ladies should be admitted was hotly canvassed and the. decision against their presence was regretted by a number of those who were responsible for the fixture. The dinner, which was held at the Hotel-Victoria, a building consecrated* to the Ministry of Munitions and V.M.C.A. canteen during the war, was in the nature of things bound attract all New Zealand within range of Northumberland Avenue, for the guest of honour was Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe and no fewer than three other ex-Governor-Generals of the! Dominion, the Earl of Ranfurly, the Earl of Liverpool arid Lord Islington, while Mr. Amery, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, too, was a guest. The menu, was a most artistic production, .with a beautiful Maori design in black and red, the work of Captain Donne. The committee had for its chairman Sir Thomas Parkinson, honorary treasurer, Mr. C. S. Wray, and honorary auditor T. B. Ching, while the members of ,the itself were: Mr. G. S. Amos, Dr. J. McN. Christie, Messrs. C. J. Cowan, A. Crabb and R. 6. Forsyth, Colonel N. FitzHerbert, Colonel B. Freyberg, V.C., Messrs. J. C. Hanna, S. Jacobs. Sir Thomas Mackenzie, Messrs. J. MacMillan, Alexander Miehie, Sir Arthur Myers, Messrs. W. Pember Beeves, F. T. Sandford, Hal Williams and W. H. Young. Sir ''James Allen, High Commissioner for New Zealand, was in the chair, and before proposing the toast of the guests, referred to the great loss New Zealand and the Empire had sustained through the death of Mr. Massey, Prime Minister of the Dominion, which occurred a few weeks ago. The present Prime Minister of the Dominion had sent them a message of cordial greeting, and stating that New Zealand stood with the Mother Country in all that made for Empire unity. In coupling the names of Earl Jellicoe and Mr. Amefy with the toast, chairman eulogised, the grea.t seravices they had rendered on behalf of ■the Empire. H_ The High Commissioner spoke too oi ■the other guests present. To Sir Jauaes ■Cooper, he said, Australians and New BSealanders were indebted for hie work

as treasurer of <the 8.A.W.R.A.; Sir lan Hamilton everyone knew; Bear-Admiral J. E. T. Harper was a New Zealand Admiral; Major General Sir Edmund Ironside was responsible for the training of many of our military officers; to Dr. Andrew Balfour and Sir Frank Heath they were. indebted for valuable assistance in tropical medical research work in the Pacific; Sir Charles McLeod was a member oi the Exhibition Board; Sir Halfor<? Mackinder had done good work for the Empire as chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee, and on the Imperial Economic Committee; Mr. John Scrimgeour was financial broker for the Dominion; Mr. W. A. Bulkeley Evans, as secretary of the Headmasters' Conference, gave great help in the selection of the boys for the public schoolboys' immigration scheme; and to General Sir Alexander Godley they owed so much for the organisation of the territorial forces in New Zealand, and the shaping of the unite which fought in Gallipoli and France. Earl Jellicoe, who was loudly cheered, in responding to the toast, spoke of the warm and loyal ties that bouncL New Zealand to the Mother Country. He had thousands of pleasant memories of the time he spent in New Zealand, which that evening recalled to hie mind. In the death of Mr. Massey, the late Prime Minister, he lost a true friend, whose straightforward honesty and simplicity of life, he commended to all New Zealand boys as an example to be followed. Referring to the products ,of New Zealand, Lord Jellicoe said that his wife worried her friends by insisting that they should buy New Zealand butter find lie had impressed upon every school master he had met that there was no diet upon which boys could be brought up except New Zealand butter and lamb, and no sort of wool which Avould keep out cold and influenza except the wool that .came from that Dominion. Mr. Amery dealt with the decision of the Government to remove the business of corresponding with the Dominions from the administrative sphere of the Colonial Office and place it under a separate Secretaryship of State for Dominion Affairs. He said that the change was not the outcome of any sudden bright idea that had just dawned on them. It was only a further step, 1 possibly overdue, in a process of evolu-i tion which had been in gradual development for the last twenty years. The suggestion had been made that the duty of dealing with Dominion! MjSp w -.* aßßi e ned to the Prime' S t>! I V* V f a not Placable to add that sphere of labour to an office already overburdened. It was of the utmost importance to keep in close touch with the various pert. o f ?£ Empire and one of the objects he had m working out these cha n te 8 »L t liberate himself, if possibl*: 80 as to give himself a better chance of kX,i£ m personal touch with the DomlH by travelling overeeae. He honedtt would be possible for him to visit An. tralia and New Zealand next year