Evening Post. THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1925. PRESS AND EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1925, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1925. PRESS AND EMPIRE

" Travel," says Bacon, "in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience." Unless the meaning of " education " is unduly restricted, it seems to be a case.of a distinction without a difference, for to tho elder sort no less than to the younger travel is, in the broadest and best-sense of the term, educative. In one of the " Letters to the Earl of Rutland on His Travels," which are commonly attributed to Bacon himself, strong emphasis is laid on the need of observant and intelligent travel for one whose vocation is to be diplo-. macy and statesmanship, and the process is as naturally assignable to education as to experience. The distinction is, after all, a mere matter of words. The fact is beyond question that travel is an educative experience of the highest value, and not merely for those whose formal and direct concern is with diplomacy and statesmanship. An immense and steadily increasing part of those functions is exercised by the unofficial diplomats and statesmen of the Press, and it is therefore just as important for them as for the professionals that their outlook should be broadened, their knowledge enlarged, and their sympathies quickened by the great educative agent.

Though the two subjects "Of Travaile " and " Of Empire " are next-door ..neighbours in Bacon's Essays, it was merely a chance collocation. In those days there was no vital connection between the two, and there would have been no point in adding an essay "Of News-sheetes" .to complete the company. The oversea Dominions in those days included little more than a few scattered and struggling " plantations " on the coast of North America. The Empire counted for. very little. The Press did not count at all. " Travel" meant foreign travel, and it was only the study of foreign manners and customs, of foreign cities, courts, and Governments, that it opened up. In these circumstances Bacon did not depart from his usual wisdom in his advice to the traveller.

Let him sequester himselfe from the company of his Country men and diet in' such Places, where there is good Company of the Nations where he travaileth.

We are glad that the first part of this advice is not being followed by the distinguished visitors from other parts of the Empire who are now in Wellington. Sequestration from their own countrymen is no part of their plan. They are travelling round the world in order to make themselves better acquainted with their own countrymen in these remote Dominions—men who are bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh, and proud to own the same allegiance, and whom, in New Zealand at any rate, the ocean which has divided most of them for a lifetime has not even in the slightest degree, estranged.

The second part of Bacon's advice' to the traveller—that he should " diet in such places where there is good Company of the Nations where he travaileth " —has been duly observed by our visitors, but the nations represented are of their own kinsmen. And speaking on behalf of the New Zealand Press we are specially pleased to think of the place and the company in which they were " dieting " last night. It was a great occasion for the New Zealand branch of the Empire Press Union to be able to entertain so large and so distinguished a delegation from the British and Canadian branches of the Union, In its cordiality and its enthusiasm it inevitably recalled the banquet which was given " to the Editors and Press of Greater Britain by their Colleagues in the Mother Country on the eye of the first meeting of the Empire Press Conference in 1909. The scale last night was necessarily much smaller, and the eloquent spokesmen of the visitors did not inohide a Rosebery, but the spirit was the same, and the moral effect may prove to be a3 good. In one respect the visit of this powerful team may be said to have realised the spirit of the hope to which Lord Rosebery gave expression sixteen years ago.

The other nieht, he said, I ventured io dream a dream—which is a very favourite practice of retired politicians. (Laughter.) And^ thinking of that vast armada the surplus of which is so constantly scrapped at what seem so wholly inadequate prices to the taxpayer—l could not help imagining how admirably some of those large ships might be used, not for the purposes of war but for the purposes of peace. I thought to myself that, if I were the lay-disposer of events in this country, I should like Parliament to vote supplies for two years, and then pack itself up in three or four of these obsolete warships and go for a trip in order to find out something about the Empire.

It is true that they are not politicians but journalists who are making this great trip " in order to find out something about the Empire," but we cannot conscientiously say that they are any the worse for that. We have no desire to' underestimate either the importance oC education to the politician or his need of it, but in these days his function is to follow even more than to load, and in tho education of public opinion bis power lags far beliiud that of. tlis

newspaper. If more than two centuries ago a wise man could say that " if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation," could he hesitate now in his choice between the legislator and the journalist? But, to obviate the necessity of further pursuing the invidious comparison on our own account, let us appeal to the impartial authority of an eminent politician as conclusive. After a reference in the exordium of the speech already quoted to the " sense of awe " with which he approached his task, Lord Rosebery said:

We have had conferences before— many of them; conferences 1 of great importance, at which the Prime Ministers and Ministers of the Empire have met together to consult on the great matters of policy which concern the Empire. It is no disparagement to these gatherings to say that I hold that this is more important still. I have the greatest respect .for. Prime Ministers and Ministers; but, whatever their splendour may be when they are in the ascendant, they are essentially transient bodies —except, I believe, in Canada—while .good newspapers are or should be eternal.

It is the eternity and the übiquity of the newspaper that give it its supreme advantage and make the present enterprise of the Empire Press Conference a matter of genuine Imperial importance.