EMPIRE PRESS CONFERENCE.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 165, 15 July 1920, Page 5

EMPIRE PRESS CONFERENCE.

WELCOME TO DELEGATES

[Press Association..] Aus. and N.Z. Cable Association

(Received July 14, 5.5 p.m.)

LONDON, July 13. Lord Burnham gave a luncheon at the Savoy to the prominent British journalises who arc delegates to the Empire Press Union Conference in Canada, in- order to welcome the Overseas delegates to the Conference.

' Among them vrcre Messrs Horton and Selig (of New Zealand), Lovekin, L angler, Jeffrey, Lansel, and Kir wan.

Lord Burnham, in welcoming the delegates, recalled the services that the 1909 conference had rendered to the Empire, and he trusted that the results of the 1920 Conference would be no less valuable.

Mr Kirwan, responding, said that it was due to the ' 1909 Conference that journalists got a full understanding of the Empire, which had proved so vitally important during the war;

Mr Selig referred to New Zealand's service during the vfar in raising an army to help the Empire. The visit of the New. Zealand delegates in 1909 had had an important effect in persuading the New Zealand pressi to adopt a more Imperial tone on the army side. When the storm burst in 1914 every village in the Empire knew what the real issue was. This was only possible because the press of the Empire "knew why the sacrifice must be made and what the "sacrifice must be. The Canadian Conference would deal with the problems of reconstruction,' such as the distribution of Imperial manpower. It was significant that in this new phase the Conference was meeting in Canada,: as the reconstruction .problems must largely ba settled and worked out in the Dominions, The meeting in Canada would get them all away from the idea that England was the centre iof . the Empire. This was no longer true. All parts of the Empire were now centres for their own purposes. The best basis of a true Imperial issue was the full knowledge ■ and symppathy of every part for.the whole.