PRIMROSE LEAGUE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 469, 10 July 1902, Page 4

PRIMROSE LEAGUE.

MR CHAMBERLAIN'S DESPATCH. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, July 8. At the Primrose League dinner at the Hotel Cecil Sir Edmund Barton, responding to tho toast of its guests sa'd we must not expect too much or too little from tho Imperial Conference, but its outcome would be to strengthen mutual relations, both as regards reason and sentiment. There was not a man in the self-governing colonies who could if he would stem the tide oi imperial feeling. Sir Gordon Sprigg thanked the Colonial Premiers for helping him in the light wherein ho was engaged. Thoro was no reason to doubt the great prosperity in store for Cape Colony and that the two races would live together in amity. Sir Edmund Barton, interviewed on the question of the Cape suspension, declared that he was glad of the Government’s wise decision, convoyed in Mr Chamberlain’s memorable, well-seasoned despatch. Sir J ohn Forrest said he did not think the suspension would have caused apprenhension to other self-governing colonies, because tho conditions wore so dissimilar, but lie strongly felt that interference would have been unwise, unless the constitution had broken down and intervention was imperative in tho interests of the colony and the Empire. German newspapers express appreciation of tho conciliatory spirit of tho despatch. Vienna liowspapers describe it as the best answer to Mr Chamberlain’s Continental detainers.