4 MAY 1925
The South African Parliamentary banquet to the Prince of Wales at Capetown was the occasion of memorable scenes. His Royal Highness, who received an ovation from representatives of all parties, spoke in Afrikaans and in English, and made a notable reference to the evolution of the Dominions within the British Commonwealth of Nations. Generals Hertzog and Botha welcomed him most cordially, and the Dutch members took him aside after dinner, talked freely with him, and sang his health in Afrikaans songs.
Prince Henry paid his first visit to Glasgow, and fulfilled a number of engagements. His Royal Highness unveiled a memorial tablet at the city’s newest hospital, and afterwards received the freedom of the city, and was made a Guild Brother of the Trades House. The Prince concluded his public programme by inspecting the Glasgow Battalion of the Boys’ Brigade, when considerably over 10,000 boys were present.
The Duke of York, Mr Baldwin, and Lord Birkenhead were among the speakers at the Royal Academy banquet in Burlington House.
Mr Neville Chamberlain told a gathering of the Junior Imperial League that he had already planned out the lines on which a solution can be found in regard to the slum problem.
Mr Walter Runciman, addressing the annual Conference of the National League of Young Liberals, commended Mr Churchill for not raiding the Sinking Fund, for returning to the gold standard, and easing the burden on the small income-tax payer. But he condemned it from the industrial and commercial points of view. It contained too many highly-coloured schemes meant to make it historic.
Mr J. H. Thomas at Derby admitted that there were good points in the Budget, but, applying the tests of whether it administered taxation fairly and impartially, and whether economy had been effected in expenditure on national affairs, he predicted that it would be an absolute failure.
Mr A. J. Coos, general secretary of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, charged the coalowners with misleading the public on the whole situation.