MESSAGE OF EMPIRE. BANQUET TO OVERSEA PARLIAMENTARIANS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 145, 21 June 1911, Page 7

MESSAGE OF EMPIRE. BANQUET TO OVERSEA PARLIAMENTARIANS.

SPEECH BY MR. R. H. RHODES. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. By Telegraph.— Presi Association.— Copyright (Received June 21, 8.5 a.m.) LONDON, 20th June. At a dinner to the oversea Parliamentarians, Mr. R. H. Rhodes, M.P. for Ellesmere (New Zealand), responding to the toast " Our Guests," said that when [representatives of the Dominions, as backwoodsmen, returned to the bush and wielded the axe or mustered flocks, they would look back kindly to that gathering within those ancient walls. Lord Rosebery's eloquence rang in their ears. They had come to pay allegiance to the King, who was no stranger to them; His Majesty was known throughout the Empire ac no British Sovereign had ever been known before. They in the Dominions looked forward to welcoming the Prince of Wales, when, following in his father's footsteps, he eet out to tread the path of Empire. (Cheers.) Throughout the Dominions it was recognised that the Motherland had demanded nothing of them in the past, but had given them protection, and had mads enormous sacrifices for them, and that though, under her protection, tliey had blossomed forth a-s young nations, they had no desire to become separate nations. (Cheers.) They realised fully what, thelf fate was in such circumstances, and their desire was rather to ' draw tighter the bonds of Empire. Sir Joseph Ward's scheme for an Imperial Council had not been adopted. Perhaps it was premature, but surely it was not too high an ideal to aim at. (Cheers.) The Dominions, continued Mr. Rhodes, were bound to share the burdens of Empire. They felt that in doing so ' they must have a voice in the settlement of foreign questions affecting the Empire's destinies. Lord Rosebery bad asked what the Dominions' message to the Mother Country was. He ventured to formulate this reply :—: — " We desire not to be. shareholders in the great company of Empire, but partners." Mr. Rhodes's speech was received with cheers. Mr. Molteno, Speaker of the South African Parliament, emphasised the entire absence of election petitions in Squth Africa, and the perfect smoothness of a strenuous Parliamentary sessiqn. Racialism was a thing of the past. The best form of patriotism for the Dominions was that each should keep its own house in order, and make its own corner of the Empire strong. The strength of tho individual parts was the strength of the whole. That being so, he tnpught South Africa had won the Empire's confidenf}. (Cheers.)