1922] on Journalism 479 



We must hope that the drum will be beaten for the peace march of 

 the world. 



Above all it is possible to regard the newspaper press as a power 

 making for fellowship and fraternity within the Empire by explain- 

 ing to each Dominion of the Crown the wants and aspirations, the 

 ideas and the prejudices of the rest. The " tyranny of silence " 

 would destroy all chance of the British Empire — or as we rather 

 pompously describe it now "the Commonwealth of Nations" — con- 

 tinuing to be a living organism. " Men are not governed as with a 

 charm by dead forms of words," said Burke ; but they are a good 

 deal governed by words all the same, and " press notices " have an 

 influence out of all proportion to their permanence in holding 

 together what he called " the mysterious whole." Mr. Hughes, the 

 Prime Minister of Australia, has often said that the interchange of 

 good news and current opinion is the most vitalising force in the 

 concord and concurrence of the Commonwealth. It is remarkable 

 to note how much the newspapers of the Empire have in common. 

 Practically speaking, they have much the same standards, the same 

 principles, and the same ideas. The Australian and Xew Zealand 

 press has been created in the express image of that of the old country, 

 and except for local variations it has no point of difference from our 

 own. In the Dominion of Canada, American example has counted 

 more than ours, for although the newspapers of Canada and the 

 United States were founded about the same time, the weight of size 

 and numbers has told in the long ran, and the process of assimilation 

 has gone along geographical lines. In some things, however, the 

 Canadian press adhere to British practice, especially in refusing to 

 publish a big Sunday edition, and in making Saturday its weekly 

 display. On the whole, there is a great and growing tendencv to 

 what Lord Milner calls " moral approximation " in the Empire 

 Press. Since 1910 the Empire Press Union has brought the collective 

 life of the newspapers of the Empire into an organised association, 

 with its central office in London and its autonomous branches in all 

 the Dominions, the Indian Empire, and the Crown Colonies, the 

 main purpose befog by harmony and united action to preserve their 

 freedom and independence, to forward their common interests and to 

 extend their legitimate prerogatives. The first Imperial Press 

 Conference was held in London in 1909 under the presidency of my 

 father ; the second in Ottawa in 1920 under my own. In a real 

 sense these great Congresses have marked and measured the potency 

 and potentiality of the Press, which may not, and ought not to, eat up 

 the other powers of the State, but which must surely grow equally 

 and equivalent!? to what economists call the felt wants and the 

 expanding energies of the human race. 



[B.] 



Vol. XXIII. (So. 11C) 2 it 



