THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8124, 23 April 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1906.

The report of the oensus of the British Empire for the year 1901, with a summary and detailed tables from the several colonies, etc, area, houses, and population, also, population claaaifle by ages, condition as to marriage, occupations, birthplaces, religious degrees of education and infirmities has been issued as a Blue Book. The total area of the British Empire in 1901 was, as nearly aa can be ascertained, 11,908,373

square miles. This is an increaseof nearly 40 per cent, on the total area in 1861, so that the Empire now amounts to more than one-fifth of the land surface of the globe. The population of the Britsb Empire at or about the date of the census of 1901 had rescued a total of about 400.000,000. Tbe distribution of this huge number in various continents was approximately aB follows: —ln Asia, more than 300 millions; in Africa, about 43 millions; in America, 'l%. millions; in Australasia, more than 5 millions; in our Mediterranean possessions, nearly' half a million; and in the islands in the British seas, 150,000; while the remaining 41>£ millions were enumerated within the limits of the United Kingdom. For the whole Empire the aggregate rate of inorease of population showed a great decline in the last deeennium. This was mainly due to the fall in tbe rate of inorease of tbe population of India, in the native states and agencies,, of which there was an actual decrease" of 5.5 per cent., exoluding India. The rate of increase for the rest of the Empire fell from 11.6 in 1881-31 to 8.6 per cent in 1891-1901. In the United Kingdom, there were 342.4 persons to a square mile, and in the Indian Empire 172 while in the Dominion of Canada and in the- Australian Commonwealth the density was as low as 1.4 and 1.3; persons per square mile, respectively►

Professor S. H. Butcher, in aa address to the Manchester branch of the Classical Association on "Greek Study in Relation to Some Present Influences on Literary Style," deplored the influence of modern journalism on literary style. This address is the text of a long article in the Outlook. The writer says:— "Anyone may reasonably hold that, so far as the uneduoated, or the slightly educated, millions of oar countrymen are concerned, the influence of the newspapers, good and bad, ia not, on the whole, evil. They have done and are doiqg, one immeasurably great thing; they set up a tide of interest in the great gray ocean of minds which would otherwise be condemned, by the conditions of a vacuous and joyless industrial life, to lie stagnant. They do much more, it is true, abusing their influence in waya of which we have all heard to satiety; but not sn much is said of the humanising breath of the world that does come, touched with what soever light vapours of evil, in among the crowded, ugly dwellings of nipdern men. Journalism has for years been becoming richer in men who inform themselves upon great matters in a spirit of statesmanship. One of the private secretaries to the present Prime Minister is a working journalist of many years' standing; and his case ia only one of the most distinguished of many that have occurred since Mr Gosohen summoned Mr Alfred Milner to him from the Pall Mall Gazette /some 20 years ago. It is not the fact that lack of knowledge lies behind the writings in those reputable papers towards which tne critioism of Professor Butcher was directed. It cannot be admitted that journalists are principally concerned with the effect that they pvoduce upon contemporary standards of style. Thoir first duty ia t> inform; their second (much be-< low the first) to persuade. In an age of telegraphy, and all the other apparatus of sooial coherency, their particular function, as we have stated it, is so obviously in accordance with the demands of the time as to put out of court any sentimental deploring of the existence of auofa a thing ae the modern newspaper press; one might as well object to cooking, or to medical science. But unless one doss boldly choose the futile attitude, and say it is not well, that the world should know the news of itself day by day, one must surely grant that the statement of facts, and the explanation of them, is what journalists 'are for'; and once that is admitted, it is hard to see what remains of Professor Butcher's case. He does not question the honesty of the newspapers of repute; and how little reason there is for accusing them of ignorance has been shown. The journalist is as much and as liitle concerned with the purely literary value of his work as i» the leeturer or the schoolmaster. He is 'pictorial' and 'emphatic' because he has to instruct; and no doubt he often develops the faultß of that vocation. It is true, too, that the moat durable gifts of lucid exposition and convincing argument are not always at their best during a six-day week and a 10 or 11-month 7ear. But these things are neither here nor there. The portion is that the newspaper sets up to supply information. If people by the million do, as Professor Butcher maintains, take it is a model of English style, that is the affair of literary persons who ought to be providing models and getting them aooepted, not of journaliats. And, by the way, the contention that a journalistic standard of style, 'pictorial,' 'emphatic,' and ao forth is operating to the detriment of higher and purer standards, seemß to stand in need of a good deal of proof."