"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 services they have rendered, at so much sacrifice to their time and convenience. I equally desire to acknowledge the admirable and efficient arrangements made throughout by the Executive Secretary, and to return my thanks to the whole staff employed on the Exhibition. Their zeal and readiness at all times to promote its success demand special recognition at our hands. In all this, I feel assured I give expression to the sentiments of every member of the Royal Commission."