AUSTRALIAN PRESS DELEGATES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3029, 3 April 1912, Page 66

AUSTRALIAN PRESS DELEGATES.

VISIT TO CHRISTCHURCH. CHRISTCHURCH, March 30. A party of 16 delegates from the Australasian Provincial Press Association, which recently held its annual convention in Auckland, arrived in Christehurch this morning en' route to Melbourne. The pressmen were met at the railway station by Mr P. Selig (chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association of New Zealand) and Mr F. Hyman (vicepresident). In the afternoon the Press and Lyttelton Times CompanievS took the visitors for a motor tour, the route followed giving glimpses of the chief residential parts of the city, the Park, and the Riccarton Racecourse. The return journey wad made via Cashmere and Hackthorne road. The party also visited Sumner, where they were entertained at afternoon tea. Mr J. J. Dougall (Mayor), in welcoming the delegates, referred to the. suggestion made by tha Commonwealth Prime Minister (Mr Fisher) that New Zealand should join the Commonwealth, and said that New Zealand had an individuality of her own, and wa« extremely unlikely to join the Commonwealth. Nevertheless both countries had much ill common, and efforts should be directed towards securing reciprocal relations between thorn. Mr T. Temperley (New South Wales), in responding on behalf of the visitors, said ho had all along favoured an Australian Federation, and he had volunteered to visit Queensland with the object of getting that State to join. At that time he had thought it would bo a grand thing to induce New Zealand to join the Federation, and he was still of that opinion. lie agreed, however, thai it was not fair for New Zealand, at its great distance from Australia, to be governed from Melbourne or Sydney, but, it might be possible to have some sort of federal bond between the two countries. They might have reciprocity. He considered New Zealand to be the most patriotic part of the British Empire, and mentioned what this country had done during the South African war in illustration of that fact, The majority of the party will leave for Dunedin on Monday.