ROYAL ACADEMY BANQUET.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13410, 7 May 1912, Page 5

ROYAL ACADEMY BANQUET.

ARMAMENT RACE DISCUSSED

SUPPORTED BY MR CHURCHILL

SALE OF REMBRANDT PICTURES

London, May 5

Sir George Reid and Sir William Hall Jones were present at the annual Royal Academy banquet.

Mr Winston Churchill said that behind the development of a war force lay the claim of a great power to put a distinguishing and characteristic mark on mankind. There was a number of men becoming fascinated by terrible machinery, but if two great civilised nations went to war they would be heartily sick of it before it was finished. The best way of making Avar impossible was to make victory certain.

Mr Asquith, in alluding to tho recent sale of Rembrandt pictures, urged the increasing co-operation between private generosity and the State.

Sir E. J. Poynter, president of the Royal Academy, advocated a register giving the nation the right of first refusal.