Page:King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career 4.djvu/19

 KING EDWARD VII CHAPTER XXIII IMPERIAL AND NATIONAL WORK 1881-1882 The time has now arrived when we are to see the heir to the throne brought into close connection with matters of the highest importance to the national and imperial interests. The public mind was awakening more fully to the fact that the home country possessed regions called colonies. Thirty years pre- viously to the time under review, the " Great Exhibition ", as it was popularly known, of 1851 had shown the British visitors many colonial products. Canada displayed her minerals, grain. maple sugar, pine, birch, maple, and walnut timber, and many furs and skins; while New South Wales and South Australia had sent timber, skins, and copper ore. The Exhibition of 1862, in the British colonial department, made a great advance on the show of eleven years before, one of the most striking objects being a huge gilded obelisk, representing the bulk of the gold, in value exceeding 80 millions sterling, obtained from the Australian colony Victoria. There were men in the British Isles who had been thinking to some purpose on colonial de- velopment, and one result of their thought was the founding, in 1868, of the Royal Colonial Institute, of which the Prince of Wales became President A place was thus provided in London where gentlemen connected with the colonies and British India could meet, and the staff of the institution under* IT.