LORD MILNER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13187, 26 May 1906, Page 5

LORD MILNER.

A BANQUET IN LONDON.

GREAT AND REPRESENTATIVE

GATHERING.

By Telegraph.—Press Association— Copyright

(Received May 25. 11.58 p.m.)

; London, May' 25. ] Five hundred and fifty guests were present at a banquet given to Lord Milner at the Hotel Cecil last night. Hundreds of applications for tickets were refused.- Ladies thronged the balconies. It was a mo3t representative gathering, and it included many peers and members of the House of Commons, commercial men, and others famous in science, literature, and the professions. Mr. Chamberlain, who presided, read cablegrams from Earl Grey (Governor-General of Canada) and from 28 members of the Dominion House of Commons, and also from persons in all parts of South Africa, sympathising with the object of the banquet, and expressing gratitude for Lord Milner's services to South Africa and the Empire. Mr. Chamberlain delivered an elaborate eulogy of Lord Milner, and described him as one of the great assets of the Empire. It was most unjust for the Liberal leaders, as they did recently, to advise a temporary majority in the House of Commons to pass an unmerited slight upon a great public servant.

Lord Milner expressed his gratitude for the manifestation of confidence and sympathy. He believed there was a strong instinct in the heart of the nation to treat its public servants with a certain broad generosity, and to judge their work as a whole, and make allowance for their difficulties. . -

Lord Curzon, in an eloquent speech, proposed " Our Dominions Beyond the Sea," and insisted that unless the nation was prepared to make sacrifices for the Empire, it would be an Empire only in name.