REUTER'S JUBILEE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2376, 4 February 1915, Page 8

REUTER'S JUBILEE

FIFTY YEARS OF NEWS GATHERING. This month one of the most famous news agencies in the world, Reuter's Telegram Company, celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. The Keuter Agency, whose busmess the company, which was formed in London in 1865, took into its charge, had already been fourteen years in existence, and had fought its way to name and fame. The story is well knoAvn of how Mr. Julius Iteuter camo from Oassel to London with little money in his pocket but great ideas in his brain. The world was growing apace, and to it man of keen business capacitv and remarkable political perception it was apparent that a great field was opening up for an enterprise which should embrace the quick gathering of news and its speedy distribution to a body of subscribers. Anyone who likes to turn over the old files of London newspapers of the 'fifties in the last century can see numbers of short dispatches from the principal centres ofEurope printed as having been "received through Mr. Reuter's Agency." The Bowing of the seed took long, but ileuter had prepared the ground well. Queen Victoria was quick to perceive the promptitude and accuracy of Reuter's news service, and by Her Majesty's command every telegram of importance received by the Agency was telegraphed to Windsor, Balmoral, Osborne or wherever the Court at the time Happened to be. On many occasions the British Government has received its first news of great events abroad in a Iteuter 'telegram. It is even stated that Lord Roberts, when in command in South Africa, first heard of tho relief of Mafeking from, a Reiiter message cabled home to London and then cabled back to South Africa. •>

In a jubilee circular issued by the Agency it is .stated: "Attacked over and over again for being pro this and anfcithat, the Agency has pursued its serene way, knowing full well that in its incessant effort to set forth facts as they are, it was certain to encounter the opposition of those who looked at things through glasses coloured by their own inclinations. Allied with all the great news agencies of the Continent, Reuter's Agency has always been recognised as a British institution representing the English point of view, just as Havas speaks for Franco and the Petrograd Agency for llusBia. In order that news from tho Continent should always hetreated' from the British side, Iletiter has taken care to'. have' competent Englishmen, traiued in its own service, at all the principal European capitals, and the activities of these correspondents ,have maintained Router's news service at a high level of accuracy and information.- Some, people, who note only the Agency bears a German name, have been disposed from time to time to accuse Eeuter of having German leanings. Nothing could be farther from ,the fact. The present Baron de Eeuter, who has been , managing director of the company for the past forty years, waa born and has passed' his whole life in England,' was educated at Harrow and Oxford, and is in all respects an Englishman. .The directors, the editorial staff, and the correspondents, are British pure and simple, and so, with the exception of a score, are the 1200 shareholders. One has only toread the German papers to learn that if there is one Er.itisli concern in the world that is regarded as violently anti-German it is Router's Agency. To-combat its British influence in the Far East, and, indeed, in other parts of the world, the German Government has for years heavily subsidised a competing _ German news service, the aim of which was, bv offering its news supply at'a very low price, to oust Eeuter from the field. But these endeavours have failed of their effect, because the newspapers and public bodies interested have known that whatever small defects the Benter service might have, they could look to it for a plain, fair and prompt record of events as seen from London, and not as viewed from Berlin. During the present great war all Reuter's relations with the German Agency have been severed; while, on the other hand, its conr.fetions with the Af.encies of the Allied Powers have been drawn closer."