l be
submitted for your approval.

"I would also suggest to you the advisability of retaining for
the present a certain sum for the purpose of meeting any
unforeseen contingencies; which sum should for the next few
years remain vested in the names of trustees, but should
ultimately be applied to the same purpose as that to which the
residue is devoted.

"As regards the balance of the surplus, I would commend to your
consideration the propriety of transferring it to the funds of
the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies, and
India (in the promotion of which the Queen and I both take so
warm an interest), the more especially as we may regard the
Institute, to a certain extent, as the outcome of the Exhibition
which was closed in November last.

"Before moving resolutions to this effect, I would wish to
express to you my deep gratitude for the support which you have
at all times given to me in the duties which I, as your
Executive President, have had so much pleasure in performing;
and I am sure you will join with me at this our last Meeting in
expressing most heartily our appreciation of the co-operation
which the Royal Commission received from the Colonies and India,
and of the exertions of the gentlemen representing these
Governments, which tended in so marked a degree to the success
of the past Exhibition.

"The enthusiastic manner in which the proposal for holding this
Exhibition was received in all portions of Her Majesty's Empire,
the energy displayed in realising the views of the Royal
Commission, and the continued support rendered to us by the
Colonial and Indian Governments and their representatives in
London, resulted in the achievement of a work of which all those
who participated in it may be justly proud, and which formed a
fitting prelude to an undertaking intended to commemorate the
Jubilee of Her Majesty's reign, by permanently gathering
together in one building the varied productions of the whole of
the British Empire, in the interchange of which its past
prosperity is so much due, and by which its future development
may be promoted.

"In closing these observations, I would desire to convey to the
gentlemen composing the Finance Committee, my warm personal
acknowledgments for their unremitting attention, and the great