Of the progress of the movement, and of the home for the Institute at South Kensington, it is not necessary here to speak, but the following speech of the Prince of Wales, at St. James's Palace, on the 12th of January, 1887, gives the best summary of all that is designed and expected in regard to the Imperial Institute. Letters had been sent out inviting many influential persons to meet His Royal Highness as chairman, and the members of the organizing committee of the Institute. The banqueting room at the old Palace was filled with an audience such as has rarely been brought together on any occasion in recent years. Many of the most distinguished men in all departments of public life, the Lord Mayors of London and York, with nearly 200 Mayors, Provosts, and Chief Magistrates of English and Scottish boroughs, Masters and Wardens of City Companies, and Directors of great corporate bodies and societies were present. The Prince of Wales, on entering the room, accompanied by Prince Albert Victor, was warmly received; and thus he addressed the meeting:-- "My Lords and Gentlemen,--You are doubtless aware of the general feeling on the part of the public that some signal proof of the love and loyalty of Her Majesty's subjects throughout her widely extended Empire should be given to the Queen when she celebrates the fiftieth year of her happy reign. In order to afford to the Queen the fullest satisfaction, the proposed memorial should not be merely personal in its character, but should tend to serve the interests of the entire Empire and to promote a feeling of unity among the whole of Her Majesty's subjects. The desire to find fitting means of drawing our colonies and India into closer bonds with the mother country, a desire which of late has been clearly expressed, meets, I am sure, with the Queen's warmest sympathy. It occurred to me that the recent Colonial and Indian Exhibition, which presented a most successful display of the material resources of the colonies and India, might suggest the basis for an institute which should afford a permanent representation of the products and manufactures of the whole of the Queen's dominions. I therefore appointed a committee of eminent men to consider and report to me upon the best means of carrying out this idea.