Report\oJ the Forty-Seventh Annual General Meeting. 34o 



of the ceremony. Building operations are still in progress, and the local Membership 

 already numbers 478. 



In recognition of Mr. Leunard's generous and patriotic action, the Council have 

 elected him a Vice-President of the Institute. 



Relations with Other Societies. 



13. Co-operation between the Royal Colonial Institute and the Victoria League has 

 been continued during the year, and matters of mutual interest discussed. The 

 Institute undertook to circulate copies of the Victoria L ?ague War publications among&r. 

 its Honorary Corresponding Secretaries, and a considerable amount of work has been 

 done in this direction. There has also been an intimate association with the Overseas 

 Club, the Chairman and Honorary Organiser of which are both members of the 

 Council of the Institute. During his mission in Australia and New Zealand, the 

 Secretary took every opportunity of meeting the chief ojficials of the Victoria League 

 and the Overseas Club, and discussing with them the question of closer unity of 

 interests between these Societies and the Institute. 



Illustrated Lectures. 



14. Owing to the exigencies of the War, some of the ordinary work of the Institute 

 was temporarily suspended, including that of the Illustrated Empire Lectures which 

 have been given by Mr. Herbert Garrison, Official Lecturer, during the past few 

 years. Mr. Garrison has, however, aided by a Committee of Fellows and Associates 

 of \he Institute, privately delivered some seventy lectures on the War and its 

 relation to the British Empire, with the object of spreading information concerning 

 the causes and progress of the War, and he has been the means of securing a considerable 

 number of recruits, and raising large sums of money for the various War Funds. These 

 lectures have been attended by great audiences in many parts of the country, as well 

 as in London. At the Royal Albert Hall, in particular, in December last he lectured 

 to a very large gathering, the Hon. Sir Arthur Lawley presiding. 



Mr. Garrison lectured on the War to the troops quartered in various parts of the 

 country, including the Royal Engineers, the Royal Arbillery, and three sections of the 

 21st Division under the command of Lieut. -General Sir Edward T. H. Hutton, a 

 Member of Council. He also lectured at Hastings to an audience specially invited by 

 Earl Brassey. 



Mr. Garrison lectured for the Institute in his official capacity during the Spring 

 Session of last year to large audiences both in London and in many of the chief 

 provincial centres, Fellows and Associates of the Institute helping in the organisation 

 as before ; prominent among these helpers being the Marquess of Normanby, who 

 promoted and presided at a successful gathering at Whitby, and subsequently 

 invited Mr. Garrison to repeat his lecture at Mulgrave Castle. Lord Plunket also 

 presided at an important meeting in the City of London. At Sheffield the Ex-Mayor 

 presided over a gathering of some 2,500 people. 



The Institute and the War. 



15. At the outbreak of hostilities the Council resolved to offer the Government 

 the use of some of the rooms of the Institute for the accommodation of special depart- 

 ments created on account of the War. The War Office being approached gladly 



