POWER OF PRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1920, Page 5

POWER OF PRESS.

PART IN EMPIRE AFFAIRS.

yALUE OF COMING CONFERENCE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received July 14, 6.5 p.m. London, July IS. Lord Burnham gave a luncheon at the Savoy to prominent British journalists who are delegates to the Empire Press Union conference in Canada in order to welcome Overseas delegates to the conference. Among these were Messrs. H. Horton (Auckland Herald), P. Selig (Christchurch Press), Lovckin, Langler, Jeffrey, Lansell, and Kirwan. Lord Burnham, in welcoming the delegates, recalled the services the 1909 conference had rendered to the Empire, and trusted the results of the 1920 conference would be no less valuable.

Mr. Kirwan, responding, said it was due to the 1919 conference that journalists got a full understanding of the Empire, which had proved so vitally important during the war.

Mr. Selig recalled Hew Zealand's service during the war in rawing an army' to help to fight the Empire's battles. The visit of New Zealand delegates in 1909 had had an important effect in persuading the New Zealand Press to adopt a more Imperial tope. Colonel L. C. Amery (Unfflr-Secretaiy for the Colonies) said that when the storm had burst in 1.914 every village in the Empire knew what "the real issue was. This was only possible because the Press of the Empire knew why a sacrifice musT'be made. The Onndlfln conference would deal with problems of reconstruction, such as the distrTbution of the Imperial man power. It was significant that in this new phase the conference was meeting in Canada, as rcconstructjon_ problems must largely be settled arid worked out in the Dominions. The meeting in Canada would get us all away from the idea that England was the centre of the Empire/ This was no longer true. AH parts of the Empire were now centres for their own purposes. The best basis of a true Imperial issue was a full knowledge and sympathy of every part for the whole.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.