COLONIAL DINNER IN LONDON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 100, 2 May 1904, Page 3

COLONIAL DINNER IN LONDON.

" GREAT GATHERING. l (Itecattd May '2, 12.34 a.m.) F " ' ~ IaJJPBON, May 1. At the Colonial Institute dinner 230 guests were present, including the Hon. Hall-Jones. Tlie Hon, All fred Lyttelton presided. Mr Robert JKeid, Victoria, proposed, and Admiral Howden Smith ivspouded, to the toast of the Imperial forces. The |* chairman proposed the Institute, v chiefly dwelling on the position in ■ South Africa. He eulogised the Ala&- . baa Anglo-French settlements, the latter being largely due to the King's influence. The Hon. Lyttelton din I llint one of the world'b forces r to he reckoned with was the desire of residents in congested ureas to break out and filter into the vacant spaces of the earth. He would be • tie last to decry racial sentiment in grfeut democratic countries, .hichab- - aolutely declined to admit into largely vacant territories competitors of a lower civilisation and low- ■ #r industrial standard than their j* own. He did not expect to live to »*- Bee a thorough reconciliation of J. those great opposing forces, nevertheless he had a right to sincerely ; and courageously face the problem. - There was a certain hollowness, a ■ certain spirit of formula in speaking ' of the unity and homogenity of the ' Empire when jieople in one portion refused free way and leave to- other subjects of the King to move freely s- in their midst, but be did not say : for a moment that those who refused were wrong. The problem was - of vast complexity and one of the greatest confronting English Btatesv men. Mr Sydenham Clarke proposed an United Empire, which was the greatest power for good in the World.