THE BACKGROUND OF NEWS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 285, 26 August 1908, Page 6

THE BACKGROUND OF NEWS.

The London Times is printing, from the pen of a correspondent whom it lately sent to travel through Australasia, a scries of letters which, if they are all as good as that on '' The Background of News " which appeared on July 11, should prove well worthy of attention. In the letter referred to, the writer deals with the time-worn theme of " imperfect sympathies " within the Empire, but he discusses it so freshly and so well as to givo the topic a new colour altogether, "Why is it that the English know so little of Australia while the Australians know so mtich, or think they know so. much, of ■England? Everybody has asked himself that question, and most colonial people find the solution in the disparity in tho amount of news about England in Ausi tralian papers and that about Australia in the British Press. In this belief, colonial politicians are keen on increasing the space devoted by the British newspapers to the doings of Australasia. Tho Times correspondent finds the answer tp the question, not in the mere news that is published, but in " the background of the news," He statos his point in this way:

For tho Australian the scantiest information about the life of the Old Country stands out against some background of knowledge already existing in tho reader's mind. Tho King, tho House of Commons, the old Universities, whatever institutions you please— these names, appearing oasually in the column of cabled news, loom through some vague perspective of historical and sentimental interest. Every reader of moderate education has at least some mental picture of the stage on which they play their part, In England, on the contrary—and because the difference is natural, it is none tho less worth remembering—only a very few readers can supply any background or atmosphere for Australian intelligence. Institutions and personalities alike are the merest names. Mr. Deakin, Mr. Watson, Mr. Reid—these are shadows of players without a stage. They appear to say accommodating or unaccommodating things, and the papers speak ill praise or dispraise of them accordingly. We form no picture, however, of the varied life about them, which statesmen epitomise far more than they direct.

These facts, bo simple, but so persists ently overlooked, go far towards explaining, and even towards excusing, tho blunders that British people make in dealing with the colonies. Remembering them, New Zealand people will be ablq to appreciate the extent of the concessions which British statesmanship has lately made to colonial feeling. The Times writer sympathises with the mortifica* tion of Australian visitors to England when they find there a " cheerful ignoiv ance " of Australian life and Australian affairs, but there are faults on both sides, There is much," he says, " in the attitude of the colonies towards England which England, if she thinks it worth while, may justly resent. In the pride of vigorous and. expanding life the young democracies arc apt at times to pay themselves a quite absurd respect in contrast with what they regard as the slowness and decadence of the Mother Country; which, nevertheless, still guarantees theij 1 commerce and defends their shores. England, in the figure used by Wilfred Campbell, the Canadian poet— A sick old caglo crying Out of tho northern seais a picture or. which thoy are sometimes pleased to dwell with a kind of pitiful respect." England, however, accepts these family condolences with equanimity. On the other hand, while the day is past when Australia was a vague land of gumtrees and gold and convicts, the British are too apt to regard the colonies only as " political or commercial organisms" : Wo think of tlicra as such and such markets, or such and such Governments, and therefore know much more about tho political experiments they favour or the commodities thoy need than about the scnlimonts which actuate them and their general ways of thought. Apart from a fine capacity for trado and a somewhat childish zeal for now departures in tho science of government, their individualities are quite unknown to us. ,', . AVo soom to look upon them, in tho wider issues of politics, as wayward and difficult children or as a kind of articulate chessmen, who announce the moves that they will at will not be.prevailed upon to maka. Wo fancy, that dofccts In know led go or syiri-

patliy are easily covered by flattery, and that colonial idiosyncrasies can always bo overcome by the fascinations of butter in a lordly dish. No wonder that wo often find our notions in collision with aspirations or sentiments of which we totally ignored the force.

The Times writer is very severe on those ox-Australians who strive to " prove themselves more English than the English with the least possible delay " when they settle in England, and he ascribes much of the English misunderstanding of Australia to " a certain typo of self-expatri-ated Australians " who misrepresent their country in private conversation, " whence spring the germs of many impressions which afterwards bear fruit in actual politics." Probably this critic, who takes fi deeper and broader view of his sul> ject than most of those who have written upon it, has exaggerated the effcot of this .class of Australians. His article does not indicate any remedy for the current misunderstandings, Indeed, he says expressly that "no remedy seems possible.' 1 It is none the less an advantage to both peoples to have their difficulties so well discussed. Those difficulties do not arise from an "inadequate news service from Australia. The Times writer con--tends very reasonably that when account is taken of the comparatively small sources of interest upon which the cabled intelligence from Australia to England draws, that news service is superior to th<? service from England to Australia, The lesson that wo would draw from this interesting communication is the neces* pity for a great deal of forbearance oij both sides. Only a very perverse Australian, remembering the Englishman's difficulty, would persist in saying harsh things about English ignoranco.'