THE COLONIAL INSTITUTE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1679, 4 May 1904, Page 55

THE COLONIAL INSTITUTE

LONDON, May 1. The Colonial Institute dinner was held last night. Two hundred and fifty gueste were present, including, the Hon W. Hall-Jones. The Haa Alfred Lyttelton, Secretary of State for the Colonies, presided. Air Robert Reid (Victoria) proposed and Admiral Sir Bowden Smith xesp onded to the toast of ‘ r The Impeljal Forcee-.’’ The chairman, in proposing ' The Colonial Institute,” dwelt chiefly on. the position of affairs in South Afriea. He eulogisied the work done in conneetipn with the Maskan and Anglo-French settlements, the latter heiug largely due, he said- to th© King’s iitfluence. Air Lyttelton declared that one of the world’s foftos to bo reckoned with u-as the desire of , residents in congested areas to break out and fitter into the v ,ostart spaces of, the earth. He would be tfe* last to- decry racial sentiment in great'demo-cratad countries which absolutely declined to admit into largely vacant territories competitors of a lower civilisatiou and lower industrial standard than their own. He did not expect to live to tseo a thorough reconciliation of those great opposing forces. Nev^Cdielcss he had the right to sincere;y and courageously face the problem. . There was, he said, a certain, hollownests and a certain spirit of formula n speaking of ‘The unity and homogeneity of the Empire, ’’ when people in one portion refused a- free way and leave to vther aubjectejr^f,,'th.e King to move free ] y in their imdat, but he did nob say for a moment topt those who- refused wei e wrong. Toe problem was of vast complexity, and one of the greatest (•-d if routing English statesmen, • , gSir George Sydenham Clarke, late Governor of Victoria, proposed. w A United Empire,” whidi he regarded.as the greatest, power for. gaod .in the v.orld* - . .. ■