BANQUET TO LORD MILNER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8150, 26 May 1906, Page 5

BANQUET TO LORD MILNER.

A BRILLIANT GATHERING. Received May 26, 12.1 a.m. LONDON, May 25. Five hundred and Ofty guests were present at a banquet to Lord Milner in the Hotel Cecil. Hundreds of applications were refused.. Ladies thronged the balconies. It was a most representative gathering, including many peers, members of the House of Commons, commercial men and others. Mr J. Chamberlain presided, and read a cablegram \ from Earl Grey (Governor-General) and twenty-eight members of the Dominion House of Canada. Cablegrams werb also received from all parts of South Africa sympathising with the object of the banquet, and expressing gratitude at Lord Milner's services in South Africa, and for the Empire. Mr Chamberlain, in an elaborate eulogy, declared that Lord Milner was one of the great assets of the Empire. It was most unjust for the Liberals t,o advise a temporary majority to pass an unmerited elight on a ereat public servant. Lord Milder expressed gratitude at the'fmßnifestation of confidence and sympathy. He believed that there was a strong instinct in the heart of the nation to treat public servants with broad generosity and judge their work as a whole and make allowance for difficulties. Lord Curzon, in an eloquent speech proposed the toast of "Our Dominions Beyond the Sea." He insisted that unless we are prepared to make sacrifices for the Empire it will be an Empire only in nama.