SIR FRANK AND LADY NEWNES.

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 48, 25 August 1925, Page 9

SIR FRANK AND LADY NEWNES.

$£p*jy T was not until the South African War that Continental Powers fully f3 p) realised the British Empire as something more than an abstraction. v\ IJI The events of 1914 and onward showed that it was indeed one *J l^> in a singularly powerful form for defence. But before 1914 steps *S5W* had been taken—which the Great War only temporarily diverted to other ways—to make the Empire one in a journalistic sense, greatly as the circumstances and aspirations of its component parts might differ. In 19G9 Sir Harry Brittain originated and organised the first Imperial Press Conference, and although naturally its efforts were directed in other channels during the War, it never lowered its high ideal of an Imperial journalistic unity. To best maintain that ideal the union recognised that close personal touch between the Press of the Dominions and the Mother Country was absolutely necessary, and that facts about these Dominions must be gathered at first hand"—the only way of obtaining accurate information! Canada was selected as the country for a memorable conference after the War, and now the venue is Australia. The English and Canadian delegates have arrived here on their way thither, and they have utilised a crowded week in seeing something of New Zealand. Such an opportunity of disclosing to the visitors the natural wealth and beauties of Now Zealand was too good to be missed, although time does not permit more than a rapid tour of the North Island. Still, brief as is the time and fleeting as the glances at the country and meetings with its people must be, the delegates will acquire much valuable information about New Zealand at the source. Lord Cave, Lord Chancellor of England, recently said:— I wish that visit* of the overseas Dominions of the King could be made compulsory upon all men entering public life.

The newspaper man enters public life -she moment he writes or prints a line in a newspaper. Anonymity : m;*y veil him from the public gaze, but he is nevertheless serving the public in the purveyance of news or in making comment upon public affairs. The British journals have worked and continue to work in the rearing of the mighty fabric of the British. Empire, and towards that task the union wnoee delegates are in .Wellington to-day has directed its best