EMPIRE PRESS UNION

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 4

EMPIRE PRESS UNION

DELEGATES AT FIJI.

LORD BURNHAM’S ADVICE

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

SUVA, August 14. The Government, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Press of Liji entertained the Empire Press Union delegates yesterday on a tweiity-fivo-milo circular drive, during which they witnessed native ceremonies at the Methodist mission station at Dayui Leva. At an informal gathering Viscount Burnham said that the Crown colonies often suffered too much from meekness. A greater spirit of co-operation between the Crown colonies was needed. “They want to assert themselves a little more at fTie general headquarters of tho Empire,” said Lord _ Burnham, “ and never be satisfied until they secure what they want. These colonial affairs should not be relegated to a small room iu one of the back passages of tho Colonial Office.” —A. and N.Z. Cable.

[Viscount Burnham, leader of English journalism, who will take part in tho Press Conference ui Australia next month, belongs to a family that has built up its fortunes entirely on newspaper enterprise. His grandfather published the first penn.v paper, tho London ‘Daily Telegraph, while his father has been given the credit for introducing “ human interest ” into the.modern newspaper. So, with the profession in his blood, the present Lord Burnham_ was educated deliberately as a journalist. He passed from Eton to Oxford, and was still an undergraduate there when be married Olive,°second daughter of General Sir Henry De Bathe. His first ambition was to enter Parliament, and when only 22 be was elected Conservative member for West St. Pancras. That was in 1884, and over since LonJ Burnham has been an intensely living figure in British public affairs. ■ He has been chairman or president of a vast number of commissions and committees that have dealt with a variety of national problems—local government reform, Civil Service reform, restoration of soldiers to civil life, Empire settlement, teachers’ salaries, and a host of minor questions have engaged his attention perpetually. In 1921 ho _was unanimously elected president of the International Labor Conference of the League of Nations at Geneva. Since 1916 he lias been president of the Empire Press Union, and it i# as tho occupant of this office that ho will be visiting New Zealand and Australia during August.]