IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. Reception at the Mansion House.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. Reception at the Mansion House.

There was a leviathan but most miscellaneous gathering at the Mansion House on Tuesday evening in connection with the two big meetings of the following day in support of the Imperial Institute. From the list of guestß I Bee the Agents-General and a few notable Anglo - colonists were invited, but if they were precent they were quite swallowed up in the crowd of well-monied but scarcely wellmannered provincials :—Lord-Lieutenantß,: — Lord- Lieu tenantB, Mayors, Aldermen, Town Clerks, Chairmen of County Boards, etc., all accompanied by their " good ladies." The supper was as usual excellent, and Mr Fred Leslie and other theatrical artists enlivened the proceedings with songa and recitations.

The Two Meetings, The meetings held at St. James's Palace and the Mansion House on Wednesday ahovred that the Imperial Institute ICheme will not fail for want of influential support. The people proper care little about it, and the colonies are only languidly interested, but tbe official and titled classes of the metropolis evidently are its warm adherents. Fashionable London at St. James's falaceand commercial London at the Mansion House clearly evidonced this. The resolutions adopting the scheme wore carried with enthusiasm, and the whole Empire is to be asked to assist in carrying it out. The Prince of Wales looks with confidence to the result of the appeal, but the papers this morning are by no means equally assured. The spirit of the enterprise they unanimously pronounce admirable. An Imperial Institute for the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India, which, in the Prince's words, should be an "emblem of the unity of the Empire, and should illustrate the resources and capabilities of every section of her Majesty's dominions ;" which "should be in constant touch not only with the chief manufacturing dis tricte of this countiy but also with all the Colonies and India ;" and which might form a practical means of communication between our colonial settlers and th se persons at home who may benefit by emigration" —would be a fitting outcome of the series of Exhibitions which culminated in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of last year. It would be a fitting memorial of the completion by the Queen of the fiftieth year of her reign. The half century over which the Queen looks back has seen a vast extension of the Eaipire, and the birth of the Imperial idea. We have learned to regard the founding of distant colonies as "the expansion of England," and to cultivate closer and closer relations with our fellowcitizens beyond the seas. The idea of an Imperial Institute is therefore timely, and the only question seems to be whether the support likely to be given it is sufficient to make it, what the Prince of Wales clearly desires it to bo, the chief memorial of the Jubilee.

The Shipping Ring, Messrs Wincott, Cooper, and Co. inform methatthenew Australian Mutual Shipping Company will commence operations sooner than was first anticipated, viz., in April next. Mr Wincott, it ia satisfactory to learn, cables that he has received flattering promises of support from the great importing houses in Melbourne and Adelaide.