At the Inaugural Banquet of the Oxford
Preservation Trust
Relayed from the Hotel Cecil
OXFORD is more than a beautiful city ; it is a city whose buildings, great and humble, whose very streets, stand for something very important in our national life. Many a young man has got his first impression of the beauty of things past, of traditional culture and secure peace, when he first saw the towers and spires of Oxford rise upon the skyline. Many a visitor from abroad has felt that he had found the key to one aspect of English history when he walked amongst the mellow Gothic of Oxford's Colleges, and over her immemorial shaven lawns. Now, outside and around Oxford, great industries are springing up, and the City itself is growing fast. To preserve the amenities of Oxford, and the beauty of the country around, and to reconcile its future with its past, is the aim of the Oxford Preservation Trust, at whose dinner that very brilliant Oxford man, Lord Birkenhead, will speak tonight.