Report of the Forty-Seventh Annual OenercU Meeting. 355 



The President (Earl Grey) : The Annual Meeting to-day takes place at a time 

 wiien our countiy is plunged up to tlie very neck in the gravest crisis that has ever 

 assailed our national existence. Whether we shall emerge from the crisis alive or dead, 

 as freemen or as slaves, depends on the courage, the tenacity, and the resolution of our 

 own people and of the nations with whom we are allied. We have good reason to 

 rejoice at the spirit with which this life-and-death struggle has been met in every 

 portion of the Empire. The universal desire to help that has been shown in every part 

 of the United Kingdom, and over the rest of the Empire — the abundant contributions 

 of food, men and material which have been lavishly poured into the lap of the Mother- 

 land from everypart of the world — these have been staggering blows to poor, misled, 

 bewildered Germany, Ijut, on the other hand, they have been regarded as birthday gifts 

 by the rest of the world. And why is the whole world of neutral nations watching mth 

 heartfelt hope for the complete and conclusive triumph of our arms ? It is not because 

 we are fighting in any selfish battle, but because we are fighting for ideals which are as 

 precious to them as to ourselves. It is too soon to discuss the conditions of peace. 

 I, for one, agree with Dr. Eliot, ex-President of Harvard University, that it would be 

 a sin to pray for peace until the barbarous and world-enslaving pretensions of the 

 Germans are killed. But two prominent landmarks stand out so as to be visible to all. 

 The first is that no peace is acceptable to us which is not also acceptable to the oversea 

 Dominions and to India, who have rallied so gallantly to the flag ; and, secondly, that 

 no peace will be satisfactory or contain the germs of permanence unless based on 

 principles leading not to our own isolated and exclusive aggrandisement, but to the 

 general benefit of humanity at large. At the conclusion of the war, if we are true to 

 ourselves, we shall be more powerful than ever before. Let us so act as to give the whole 

 wide world reason for its confidence that our powerful Army and Navy will never be 

 used for the purpose of pressing down foreign peoples, but, on the contrary, will be used 

 for the purpose of lifting them up by securing to them the same blessings of fair and 

 equal opportunity we may endeavour to obtain for ourselves. 



I have made these few remarks because they lead up to what I desire to say about 

 the Royal Colonial Institute, What is its primary aim and object ? It is to help by 

 its efforts all round the world to keep the Empire as a solid integral unit for the efficient 

 and disinterested service of mankind, so that the smallest and weakest community 

 shall learn to look with hope, confidence and affection to our rule. On what does the 

 continuance of the Empire depend ? Undoubtedly two things — first the greatness of 

 its ideals, and, second, the adequacy of its organised strength to protect every portion 

 against the greed and vindictiveness of the aggressor. And that in turn depends on 

 the existence and on the strengthening and development of a sense of Imperial con- 

 sciousness in every portion of the Empire. How to foster and promote that sense of 

 Imperial consciousness on which the maintenance of our Empire and the hope of its 

 organic union depend has for some time been the constant problem of the Council of the 

 Institute, and, I believe, of the members themselves. It is hardly necessary to point 

 out the close intimacy between the general pervading sense of Imperial consciousness 

 and Imperial defence. It is sufficient to say that in those British communities beyond 

 the seas where the ratio of Fellows of the Institute to the white population is highest 

 there also is to be found the highest percentage of enlisted soldiers. It would be 

 invidious where all have done so well to make comparison, but without offence I may 

 point out that Rhodesia, where the Institute has a larger percentage of Fellows to the 

 white population than in any other portion of the Empire, has contributed to the Army 

 the largest percentage of soldiers. Take again the British community in the indepen- 



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