Under the circumstances it was unfortunate that the King should have reminded the assembled company of the Great Exhibition of 1851. That was opened in sunshine, and in a sunshine of hope and great ideas. It was international in design and spirit; the first of a great series of such displays. Its guiding spirit was the Prince Consort, one of the most intelligent and creative princes who have ever stood near the British throne. Heaven alone knows how deep Britain would not be wallowing in ignorance and vain delusions if it had not been for his initiatives. He stirred the self-satisfied lethargy of Oxford and Cambridge, so that they have never really slept in peace since, and to this day the Commissioners of his Exhibition administer great funds for scientific and artistic education. The most stimulating things in that Exhibition were the displays of foreign products. They woke up England to the fact that she was falling behind technically and artistically; they caused heart-searchings and effort. But this show is a show of Empire products, “just among ourselves.” We no longer want to know what the world is thinking and doing outside the ring fence of Empire. If the foreigner is being cleverer than we are in any department we do not propose to hear of it. The King said that the aim of the Exhibition was more “modest” than that of the great show of seventy-three years ago. Was “modest” the word to use? Or “base”? Is this flat bragging that follows really modesty? It is the tune to which the whole thing goes. The London show of 1851 was Tennysonian, and Tennyson sang of the confederation of the world; Wembley in 1924 is Kiplingesque or nothing, and this is Mr. Kipling’s “modest” cry to the Dominions. To set the rhyme going, and without any particular geographical reference, he informs the Dominions “the pathways are broad”: “In thy house and my house is half the world’s hoard; In thy house and my house hangs all the world’s fate; On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate.”