THE UNDISCOVERED EMPIRE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9127, 29 June 1908, Page 4

THE UNDISCOVERED EMPIRE.

The London conespondenl of the Melbourne "Age" has a striking article on the speeches at this year's dinner of the Royal Colonial Institute. The gathering was memorable, he sayr., for a remarkable outburst of fdeling. It was not the Prince of Wales who evoked it, nor Lord Crewe, nor even anyone in the third degree of eminence, but Dr Parkin, "amereC.M.G. allotted the fourteenth seat to the right of the chairman." For an hour the guests had listened to speeches, some mildly

stimulating, others consisting of j careful platitudes. Then Dr Parki 1 ; put life into the gathering. He toi.k his cue partly from the new Secretary for the Colonies, who had remarked that in taking up the political management of the Colonial Office it was a certain consolation to him that nobody really knew the Empire "except, to a great extent, by hearsay." He had spoken also of the "almost countless" British dependencies. There was East Africa, for example; it "represented an ancient Arab civilisation, the towns of which are mentioned in 'Paradise Lost,' but few of us know very much more of East Africa than Milton himself did." Lord Crewe did not appear to be at all distressed at this ignoranct, but Dr Parkin wanted to know why such lack of knowledge of the Empire should be permitted to continue. The price of Empire waa knowledge, and if what were sometimes spoken of as the ruling classes of England did not take the trouble to study questions of Empire, they were not fit to continue in their place of honour. Similarly, if the Labour party did not study the conditions and needs of the Empire, they were not fit to exercise power in politics. These remarks were greeted with the first hearty cheers of the evening, and the enthusiasm increased as Dr Parkin went on to urge the necessity of a wider education ia Imperial affairs, and of keeping colonial affairs as far as possible outside the arena of party. "But the pronounced, almost dramatic, approval of his speech did not reach its climax till he said that the public were beginning to understand that there was no greater post in the Empire than the Colonial Office; that it offered opportunities adequate to the very highest ability and statesmanship, and ihat, above all, it was 'not the place where inexperien-e 1 statesmen ought tj be put to sow their wild oats.'"