362 Royal Colonial Institute. 



anotlier and most important reason why there should be no further delay in forming 

 local branches in the United Kingdom. It has already been shown that the influence 

 of the Institute does not extend outside London and a small area of the Home Counties ; 

 and yet it is essential that we should largely increase oUr Resident Fellows and Asso- 

 ciates, as it is only through them we derive our chief financial resources. In a population 

 of forty-six millions in the Mother Country we are only supported by 3,000 Fellows and 

 Associates ; on the other hand, we have 7,000 Non-resident Fellows and Associates 

 from sixteen millions of British residents overseas. The subscription paid by these 

 Non-resident Fellows barely suffices to meet their share in the cost of the office, house, 

 library and newspaper room. Journal and Year Book, so that the main support of the 

 Institute must come from its members in the United Kingdom. 



Recently the Council appointed an Organisation Committee to deal with this most 

 important subject, and I feel certain that Avith due diligence and energy it will be able, 

 within a reasonable time, to increase the number of Resident Fellows and Associates, 

 while at the same time it will lose no opportunity of adding to the number of our Fellows 

 overseas. No serious steps have yet been taken to co-ordinate the work of the Institute " 

 with that of other societies engaged in similar work, as was recommended by the Com- 

 mittee of 1909. What has been the cause of the multiplication of societies whose objects 

 are the same ? Can it have arisen from the possibility that this Institute has not 

 fulfilled its mission, and that it has left openings for the formation of other societies to 

 carry out work it should itself have undertaken ? However this may be, sixteen years 

 after the birth of the Institute the Imperial Federation League was formed " to secure 

 by federation the permanent unity of the Empire." Its founders A^'^re Mr. W. E. 

 Forster, Sir Frederick Young and Sir John Colomb, all of whom were on the Council of 

 this Institute, and, to quote the words of our first President — the late Earl of Albe- 

 marle — " the League was invented in the Colonial Institute." In 1894 the British 

 Empire League was foimded and supported by Sir Robert Herbert, Sir Frederick 

 Young, and other members of the Coimcil ; and its object was " to maintain and 

 strengthen the connection between the United Kingdom and the outiymg parts of the 

 Empire." It is difficult to understand why it was necessary for these two Leagues to 

 be created — by members of the Council of the Institute — to do work which might well 

 have been initiated and carried out by the Royal Colonial Institute. 



In 1901 — thirty-three years after the Institute was founded — the Victoria League 

 came into existence, mth the object of promoting " the closer union between British 

 subjects living in different parts of the world," and this was followed nine years later 

 — in 1910 — by the Overseas Club, founded to " promote the unity of the Empire " ; 

 so now there are four different societies formed to promote the same object, with 

 practically the same motto as that of the Institute, " United Empire." It cannot be 

 denied that, while they may have each their special function to perform, the more these 

 societies work together the more capable they will be of fulfilling the object which they 

 have undertaken. If you look at the list of members on the Governing Body of these 

 three societies, you will see many of the same names appearing in all, and it surely 

 should not be difficult to come to an understanding, and work together for our common 

 object. Now that Imperial feeling has been so deeply stirred by the common effort 

 which the war has called forth from all parts of the Empire, the time seems propitious 

 for the question to be taken up again, with a view to a closer co-operatit>n between the 

 different societies doing similar work. 



I would specially wish to express to you how much we arc indebted to some of 

 the members of Council, and to the whole of the staff, for the work done during the last 



