Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/77

 Africa, Mr John Burns; General Sir John French, Mr Marconi, Lord Blyth, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir John Cockburn, and the Postmaster-General, Mr Herbert Samuel.

Lord Strathcona in the course of his speech said that when he first went to Canada, seventy years before, letters from England to Canada cost from 4s. to 8s.

The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, the Postmaster-General, in proposing the toast of "The British Empire and Imperial Communications," said that "that was an occasion of pleasure and of deep regret, since it signalized the retirement from active public life of their friend Mr Henniker Heaton. Postmasters-General came and went with sometimes bewildering rapidity, but they were accustomed to think that Mr Henniker Heaton went on for ever, and for his own part, he would believe Mr Heaton—whether in Parliament or out of it—had given up active work as a postal reformer when he saw it and not before. He thought he could claim that for the Postmaster-General of the day to attend a banquet at which Mr Henniker Heaton was the chief guest, showed something in the nature of a forgiving spirit. They all knew that his favoured form of sport was the baiting of Postmasters-General. His was the task of sticking the bandillero into the quivering shoulders of the infuriated animal. (Laughter.) He it was who waved in front of its eyes the red cloak of penny-a-word cablegrams, and, when the infuriated beast charged, with graceful and sylph-like agility, slipped over the barrier.

"It was a great public service which Mr Henniker Heaton had performed in continually keeping on the alert the individual, whoever he might be, who was at the head of the great Department of State over D