PILGRIMS' BANQUET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9118, 18 June 1908, Page 5

PILGRIMS' BANQUET.

SPEECH BY MR ASQUITH. THE BEST SAFEGUARD OF PIO ACE. Received Jun-j 17, 8.17 a.m. LONDON, June 16. Lord Curzo::, formerly Viceroy of India, presiding at the Pilgrims' Banquet in London, proposed the toast of "The King and President Roosevelt," remarking that no two men had exercised a more powerful influence, or appealed more forcibly to the better instincts of mankind. Mr Asquith (Prime Minister), in proposing "Our Guests," tald it would be a lost opportunity, it :::ch a unique assemblage as thn Pan-Ang-lican Congress should separate without contributing to that better mutual understanding be'ween mm and the growth of that cjm.non corporate sense ot oneness, which was the best safeguard of the peace of thj world. He was not speaking at present as a politician. Treaties and understandings were happily year by year minimising the risks and narrowing the areas of possible contention. Far more important arf a settled influence was the increasing disposition of peoples to know and understand one another. The speaker added that the Church destroyed slavery and proclaimed that property, privilege, and fortune were not freehold, but a trust, and she might still, if she used her opportunities and lived up to the height of her mandate, share the task of expelling the greatest scourge threatening the unity unci progress of mankind.

The Eishop of Missouri and ti.o Archbishop of Rupcrtslanu responded.