Mr. J.X. MERRIMAN: I am sure South Africans are very grateful
indeed to the amiable and kindly critic in the person of Sir
Frederick Young. It is no new thing to Colonists to owe him a debt.
All those present will acknowledge the great things he has done for
the Colonies in connection with the Royal Colonial Institute. Sir
Frederick Young is a man who has been content to look after small
things, and the result is this Institute has been worked up by the
individual efforts of Colonists and others to its present
flourishing condition. I hope the Institute will long flourish,
and never be absorbed by anything under more magnificent
auspices--in other words, that you will "paddle your own canoe." It
is good sometimes to have a plain statement from a plain man. South
Africa suffers under a plague of experts who, after spending a few
weeks there, tell us exactly what we ought to do; and we don't like
it. I wish I could speak to you as a sort of amiable critic, but I
have the misfortune to belong to that much-despised class the local
politician, and I notice that, when anybody says anything about the
Colonies in England, all unite in kicking the local politician.
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