The Colonial Institute.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4593, 2 May 1904, Page 2

The Colonial Institute.

London, May I.— At the Colonial Institute's dinner there were 250 guests, including, the Hon Hall Jones, of New Zealand. The Secretary for the Colonies, Alfred Ly ttelton , presid ed . Mr Robert Reid, of Victoria, proposed, and Admiral BowenSmith responded to the toast of the Imperial forces. The Chairman proposed the toast of the Institute. He dwelt chiefly on the position in South Africa. He eulogised the Alaskan and Anglo - French settlements and said that the latter had been largely due to the King's influence. Lyttelton deolared that one of the World's forces to be reckoned with was the desire of residents of congested areas to break out and filter into the vacant spaces of the earth. He would be the last to decry racial sentiment in great democratic countries, which absolutely declined to admit to largely vacant territories, competitors -of lower civilisation and of a lower industrial standard than their own. He did not expect to live to see through' the reconciliation of those great opposing forces. Nevertheless, he had a right to sincerely and courageously face the problem. There was a certain hollowness in speaking of the unity and homogenifcy of the Empire when people of one portion refused a free way and leave to other subjects of the King to move freely in their midst, but he did not say for a moment that those who refused were wrong. The problem was of vast complexity and one of the greatest confronting English statesmen.