The Colonial Troops Club, to which attention has already been
drawn in our correspondence columns, was formally opened on Friday week by Mr. Chamberlain. The Club, the formation of which is entirely due to a happy thought of Miss Violet Brooke-Hunt, has been established for the special con- venience of non-commissioned officers and men of the Colonial forces visiting London for the Coronation, the initial expenses having been met by private subscription, by a grant of £500 from the Colonial Office, and by generous gifts of furniture and other equipments from various leading firms. Mr. Chamber- lain in his speech dwelt on our debt to the Colonies in the war, a debt which had its moral as well as its material side. As regards the actual numbers, he noted that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand had sent an army greater than the British Army at Waterloo. With this interesting func- tion we may connect the annual dinner of the Corona Club— an institution founded three years ago to afford a rendezvous for Colonial officials on leave—at which Mr. Chamberlain pre- sided on Wednesday evening. After congratulating the com- pany on the happy auspices under which they met, Mr. Chamberlain observed that we now had a peace which was honourable to both parties, that we had obtained all for which we had been fighting, and that while we had been generous to our opponents in regard to personal and private matters, we had done nothing to prejudice that ultimate solution of the South African question to which we all looked forward as the justifi- cation of the war.
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