LORD MILNER BANQUETTED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8120, 26 May 1906, Page 3

LORD MILNER BANQUETTED.

A BRILLIANT FUNCTION.

Beceived 26, 12.1 a.m. London, May 25,

Five hundred and fifty quests wore present at the banquet to Lord Milner at the Hotel Cecil, Hundreds of applications had to bo refused. Ladies thronged the balconies. It was a most representative gathering, including many Peers, Commoners, commercial men, and others famous in science, literature and the professions.

Mr Chamberlain, presiding, read a cablegram from Karl Grey and twentyeight Dominion Commoners, and from all parts of South Africa sympathising with the object of the banquet, and expressing gratitude for Lord Milner's services to South Africa and the Empire. Mr Chamberlain in an elaborate eulogy declared Lord Milner was one of the great assets of the Empire and it was most unjust for the Liberals to advise a temporary majority to pass an unmerited slight on a great public servant.

Lord Milner expressed gratitude for the manifestation of confidence and spmpathy. He believed there was a strong instinct in the heart of the nation to treat its public servants with broad generosity and judge their work as a whole, and mate allowance for the difficulties.

[ • Lord Curzon, in an eloquent speech, proposed "jOar dominions beyond the sea." He insisted that unless we were prepared to make sacrifices for the Empire, it would be an Empire only in name.