Miscellaneous * 



356 



[April, 1912- 



possessions took place. In acknowledg- 

 ing the gift, Sir W. T. Thistleton-Dyer 

 said :— 



Sir Henry Blake and gentlemen,— I 

 think the Permanent Secretary of the 

 Colonial Office, who is present with us 

 to-night, will agree with me that this 

 is rather a unique occasion in official 

 history. 5Tou know that Civil servants 

 serve under the Crown, I think 1 may 

 say, without fear or expectation of 

 favour. When they do their duty they 

 are subject to a good deal of criticism. 

 They are very glad when their efforts 

 meet with some success. I can honestly 

 say, as far as I know, that the last 

 thing they except to get is the smallest 

 credit for it. I find myself now in front 

 of a stupendous piece of plate which 

 Sir John Anderson suggests I should 

 take away under my arm. I confess 

 that I find the situation rather em- 

 barrassing, but I am very much com- 

 forted when I read the inscription, 

 because nothing is more impossible than 

 for a servant of the Crown to receive 

 any substantial recognition of anything 

 he has done. What Kew did in this 

 matter was nothing more than its ordin- 

 ary routine work. That institution now 

 lives in the third century of its exist- 

 ence. As I have reminded my neighbour, 

 the Ccnsul-General for Germany, it was 

 founded in the 18th century by a prin- 

 cess of his nation, who, to adopt the 

 words of Mr. Gladstone, " cast her 

 aspirations into the future" of her 

 adopted country when she founded Kew. 

 We have done many things in the past 

 at Kew. When I say "we," I speak 

 of a considerable procession of prede- 

 cessors in the 18th century. We— that 

 is Kew— tried in the same way as we 

 engaged in the rubber enterprise to 

 transfer the breadfruit from the Pacific 

 to the West Indies. The mutiny of the 

 Bounty grew out of that attempt, and 

 there was a chivalrous predecessor of 

 Mr. Wickham in the Kew gardener, 

 who stuck to the captain, and died from 

 exposure in the boat. Peace has its 

 victims as well as war. Well,we succeed- 

 ed with regard to rubber. I can assure 

 you that on that Hth of June, when Mr, 



Wickham arrived at Kew in a hanson 

 cab with his precious bag of seeds, not 

 even the wildest imagination could have 

 contemplated its results in this banquet 

 to-night. What we did was done in the 

 most ordinary and routine way. I was 

 the lieutenant then. My chief, who is 

 now in his 95th year, and who has the 

 vigour of youth, but is not allowed to 

 dine out, would have enjoyed very much 

 to be present here to-night ; but there 

 is one whom I miss, who was the prime 

 mover in the enterprise— one to whom 

 your cheer should go up— Sir Clements 

 Markham. (Applause.) He was the 

 prime mover also in introducing the 

 Cinchona plant into India, and giving 

 India the advantage of quinine. He 

 travelled in South America, and I think 

 that out of quinine the idea came to 

 him that he would round off that part 

 of his life's work by giving to the East 

 rubber as well. When I tell you that 

 owing to Markham the natives of Bengal 

 for a farthing can get five grains of 

 quinine at any post office, you will 

 realise what he did with the help of 

 Kew in introducing the Cinchona tree 

 into India. In the same humdrum way 

 we did the same with rubber. I saw 

 Mr. Wickham's seeds planted. We knew 

 it was touch and go, because it was 

 likely the seeds would not germinate. I 

 remember well on the third day, eoing 

 into the propagating house where 

 they were planted, and seeing that 

 by good luck the seed was germin- 

 ating. So rapidly did the plants grow 

 —1,900 of them— that we had to have 

 special cases made. On August 12th, 38 

 cases went out to Ceylon on a P. & O. 

 steamer in charge of a gardener, but I 

 will not bore you with other details. 

 You yourselves are able to judge of the 

 result, and you can appreciate the advant- 

 age of Kew taking up a matter of this 

 kind. The whole expense of initiation, 

 and the whole burden of finance from first 

 to last was borne by the India Office, and 

 the people to whom the Colonies in the 

 East ought to bo grateful is the Indian 

 Government, which, I am afraid, ha9 

 reaped very little advantage. You owe 

 it that debt, aod it is a deep debt. I 



