Horatio David Davies, at the Mansion House,
London, November 4, 1898.]
MY LORD MAYOR, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND
GENTLEMEN:--The task has been placed in my hands of proposing the
toast of the evening: "The Health of the Sirdar." [Loud cheers.] It is
the proud prerogative of this city that, without any mandate from the
Constitution, without any legal sanction it yet has the privilege of
sealing by its approval the reputation and renown of the great men whom
this country produces; and the honors which it confers are as much
valued and as much desired as any which are given in this country.
[Cheers.] It has won that position not because it has been given to it,
but because it has shown discrimination and earnestness and because it
has united the suffrage of the people in the approval of the course that
it has taken and of the honors it has bestowed. [Cheers.] My Lord Mayor,
it is in reference to that function which you have performed to-day and
the most brilliant reception which has been accorded to the Sirdar that
I now do your bidding and propose his health. [Cheers.] But if the task
would be in any circumstances arduous and alarming, it is much more so
because all that can be said in his behalf has already been said by more
eloquent tongues than mine. I have little hope that I can add anything
to the picture that has been already drawn [allusion to previous
speeches made by the Earl of Cambridge, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord
Rosebery], but no one can wonder at the vast enthusiasm by which the
career of this great soldier has been received in this city.
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