Ashburton Guardian Magna est Vertias et Prævalebit. MONDAY, MAY 15. 1893 THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 2973, 15 May 1893, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Vertias et Prævalebit. MONDAY, MAY 15. 1893 THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

From the cablegrams of last week we can gather that the opening ceremony of the Imperial Institute was a most imposing function, and that there was a degree of enthusiasm about it not usually characteristic of the English people anent things colonial. But then it has to be remembered that although John Bull is careless and indifferent about colonial matters, and his gross ignorance isof Australasian affairs more especially as astonishing as it is proverbial, there is no man more loyal to, his sovereign, and no John Bull in any age has more dearly and sincerely loved the occupant of the Throne than does the «Briton of to-day love Queen Victoria. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to be present at 1 the opening ceremony; and to take a prominent i art in it, and this fact alone would account for much of the enthusiasm that was displayed, and tor the presence of many of the thousands of people who composed the dense multitude that surrounded the building;for Her Majesty's public appearances of late have been few and far between, and as her burden of years increases they must of necessity become fewer still. The idea of the Institute took its rise at Her Majesty's jubilee, and its object was to establish a national memorial of that jubilee that should be a museum of the resources of the colonies and India, a history told by object lessons of the progress of the far away daughters of the greatest empire in the world. The Queen herself laid the foundation stone on July 4, 1887, and the Prince of Wales entered with a keen and active interest upon the duty of bringing the work to a successful issue. To his energy and influence much of the success of the scheme has been due, for he advocated the claims of the Institute unceasingly, and to such good purpose that before her Majesty's jubilee year had expired the respectable total of £350,000 represented the subscriptions received towards it. Most ot that money, however, and the subscriptions, since received, came from English purses, for no one will accuse either of the Australian or New Zealand colonies of being liberal to extravagance in its subscriptions, or enthusiastic to monomania in the work done to help in the Institute's establishment. It might almost be said that the Institute has come into existence in spite of the Australasian colonies, but now that it does exist they are not likely to refrain from making use of it. It will be useful to the colonies in many ways. It will be a rendezvous for colonials i_ London, a meeting place for the comparison of notes on questions of colonial import; a museum to show the natural and industrial pioducts of the over-sea empire ; an intelligence agency of the most reliable kind, that will cover io its operations not only the greater colonies of India, Canada, and Australasia, but every spot in the distant sea owning allegiance to the crown of Victoria. The Institute cannot fail to be of real service to the different parts of the empire, and will do much to foster the bond of brotherhood that the Imperial idea is supposed to cement. New Zealand already has laid hold of its usefulness or rather her keen-sighted and prompt-acting Agent-General, Mr Perceval, has done it for her, for we learn by cable that he has been arranging for the establishment in the building of a pagoda showing the cooling apparatus under which meat and butter are exported from New Zealand to London. We much mistake Mr Perceval if the use he makes of the Institute ends at that. In a word, the Institute will be an emblem of the unity of hearts that exists among the millions of subjects of that empire on which the sun never sets,