SOUTH AFRICA

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10153, 1 February 1911, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICA

(cable news

United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

SPEECH BY DUKE OF CONNAUGHT. OUTBURST OF ENTHUSIASM. ! (Received Last Night, 10 o'clock.) I LONDON, January 81. I The Duke of Connaught, at a luncheon, in the Guildhall, stated that he hoped that, now that peace and union had come, the South African leaders would leave no stone unturned to create trade between South Africa and the British, and thus help the great Continent to develop its immense, but practically untouched, mineral, agricultural, and general commercial resources.

In narrating in enthusiastic terms his impressions of the recent tour, His Royal Highness taid that he enjoyed meeting the Premier of the Commonwealth of Australia (Hon. A. Fisher), and the Hon. R. Lemieux, Postmas-ter-General of Canada, that eloquent statesman of the great Dominion with which it soon would be his pride to be closely,, and, he hoped, affectionately associated. (Cheers). ' He had also met the representative of New Zealand, so far away< but yet so near to the heart of the Motherland.

His hearers would, he said, note the amazing change which in a few short years has been wrought in the representative character of the self-govern-ing possessions, which were no longer a number of unimportant, widelyscattered States, but four great nations. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were prepared to discuss at the Imperial Conference the pressing problems of the Empire-.

The Duke concluded by saying that although foreseeing in South Africa fierce political controversies, and in all probability political mistakes, such a* have occurred in other parts of, the Empire, he was convinced that :t was the steadfast intention of the South Africans to prevent any abuse if"free Government, and to make their Union a permanent success.