The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1925. THE PRESS ON TOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1925. THE PRESS ON TOUR.

For the cause that lacVa assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good thai to* c\in da.

The significance of the Conference tha 4 - -13 tc be attended by the Press delegates who arrive in New Zealand to-morrow is proportionate to the knowledge and imagination one bring/5 to the subject. To some the newspaper is a purely prosaic daily record of the markets, accidents, sport, and politics of a humdrum life. To others it has all the romance that Mr. Kipling saw in the "nine-fifteen," and more. Moreover, we have in the forthcoming Empire Press Conference in Australia interest in the journalism* of the Empire focussed a', a pofnt. This party that is Hearing New Zealand is the largest and most representative collection- of newspaper proprietors and working journalists that has ever come to Australasia. It brings the names of famous newspapers, and personalities known to all who follow the affairs of Home. In the delegation there are memories of many an article that has made history or passed into literature, of many a hard-fought fight for popular liberties and political and social reform. There is, for example, "The Times," which is still "The Times," the most famous newspaper in the world. In a very different sphere, but one in which the genius of the British people is equally well displayed, there is "Punch," which is represented by a writer whose initials are known wherever that perpetual delight and repository of national good-humour is read. These proprietors and writers represent worthily the best of English journalism, and they are accompanied by delegates from other parts of the Empire, where the traditions of that journalism have been planted. The public is far from understanding as it should the great importance of the work that the Press of the Empire has done and the value of those standards of honesty, fair play, and public service which have been set up at Home and copied in the Dominions. The daily newspaper is a utility which the average

man is apt to take for granted, without making much effort to inquire into its organisation and understand its methods, but not without grumbling at what he considers its defects. He does not realise that to be given for a penny or twopence what he reads every day, and to be given this with the utmost regularity, is something approaching a miracle. It is made possible only by a world-wide organisation of news gathering and news distribution, and when 'value is considered in relation to price there is nothing so cheap as the result. This great service has been built up by years of work. The true journalist is never satisfied. However good his newspaper or his journal may seem to him, the word perfection is never in his vocabulary. The Empire Press Union exists for the double purpose of improving the newspaper services of the Empire, and of promoting friendship between the Empire's different parts. The second purpose is really embraced by the first, for quick interchange of accurate news and fair, wellinformed comment, and visits by journalists, help to create the true Imperial spirit of knowledge, and that wisdom which so o£ten, unfortunately, lingers behind knowledge. In the Union, and this is reflected in the delegation that will be welcomed here next week, are newspapers of various political opinions. Among the subjects on which they agree is the need for cheap communication, nnd the oversea Empire owes the Union and newspaper proprietors and journalists generally much for their persistent and successful advocacy of lower postage and cable rates. The fuller cable service which the people of New Zealand now receive is due both to journalistic enterprise and to the lowering of cable rates as a result of enlightened agitation.

It would be wrong to lay undue emphasis on the material side of this vast organisation. The Press of every civilised country has its special virtues. We believe that the most important features of British and Dominion newspapers are their sense of fairness, their honesty, their good humour, and their vigilance in the interests of freedom and good government generally. Democracy could not exist without the Press. The Colonial who goes Home goes to the fount not only of personal and political liberty, but of free and fearless journalism. These Press delegates from Britain are a deputation from the parent body. They will be keen to see these new lands, to observe how these young nations are shaping themselves, and particularly to note how what is at once a craft, a profession, and a trust is faring in communities whose energies are necessarily much taken up with taming Nature and laying the foundations of material progress; If an interested party may be permitted to express an opinion, we do not think they will be disappointed,