First Imperial Press Conference

 First Imperial Press Conference

Date	5 June 1909 - Present
Location	London,  England
Description	In 1909 the Pilgrims Society invited 54 prominent pressmen from around the Empire in a a fully paid trip trip with VIP treatment, in the expectation that they would return to their homes "missionaries of Empire."
Perpetrators	Harry Brittain, Edward Levy-Lawson, Lord Northcliffe, C. Arthur Pearson, Archibald Primrose

The First Imperial Press Conference was a British conference that invited 54 prominent pressmen from around the Empire, "the men who permanently reflect and influence the opinion of their Commonwealths".

The delegates, in the fully paid trip to Britain, were given a VIP treatment of wining and dining, access to high personalities and places. Former British Prime Minister Lord Rosebery concluded his speech the delegates at the Banquet of Welcome given on their arrival, by hoping and predicting that they would return to their homes "missionaries of Empire."

Organisers

Harry Brittain, one of the founders of the Pilgrims Society, placed his plan before some leading newspaper owners and editors; the consequence being the formation of a small but influential Committee to consider and arrange preliminaries, including Lord Burnham (as President), Lord Northcliffe, the Hon. Harry W. Lawson, Sir Edward Russell, C. Arthur Pearson, Robert Donald, Kennedy Jones, Frank Newnes, E. Bobbins, Frank Lloyd, and C. D. Leng. This Committee was rapidly extended until it comprised the editors and many proprietors of the principal morning and evening journals of London and the provinces, and the leading illustrated "weeklies," the Presidents of the Newspaper Society and the Institute of Journalists, and other representative men.

Program

The total number of visitors from overseas was fifty-four, from the leading newspapers around the Empire.

The invitation said that the representatives "be our guests from the moment they leave their own country, during the period of the Conference, and for their journey home. . . . We hope to welcome them in London on Monday, June 7, and to entertain them for about eight or ten days, followed by a visit to various parts of the country, to last about the same time."

The guests received VIP treatment. Prince of Wales extended invitations to the delegates to a Garden Party at Marlborough House, where they met the King and Queen. The Government exhibited its interest by arranging a variety of engagements for their delectation and information, including a military display and sham fight at Aldershot, a naval review at Spithead, and a Government banquet, with the Premier, Mr. Asquith, as Ministerial spokesman. The journalistic and literary members of both Houses of Parliament invited them to a luncheon; the Lord Mayor bade them to a similar function at the Mansion House; and prominent hosts and hostesses gave garden parties, dinner parties, and receptions, in order to have themselves, and provide for their friends, the fullest opportunities for meeting the delegates under intimate and unrestricted conditions. Field trips included the steel mills of Sheffield, Manchester, Oxford University, Glasgow and the shipyards of the Clyde, Edinburgh, a visit to the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, and a motor Journey through the Peak District

Speakers at the conference included Lord Rosebery, the Premier Herbert Asquith, the ex-Premier, Arthur Balfour, Sir Edward Grey, Alfred Lyttelton, Richard Haldane, Lord Cromer, Augustine Birrell, Lord Milner, Lord Morley, and other leading men on both sides of politics, such as Winston Churchill, Lord Curzon, Leo Amery, Sidney Low, and Charles Beresford, "speaking to them on Empire topics with one Imperial tone and voice. It was a revelation, carrying the inspiration of a greater and higher confidence in the destinies and invincibility of Great and Greater Britain."

Results

A resolution was carried recognising the duty of the Press to do all in its power to co-operate with the naval and military authorities in organising the defences of the Empire, and in avoiding any injury to the public interests in publishing news during time of war.

The invited pressmen were gushing in their praise of the Empire.

Mr. Brierley (the "Herald," Montreal) in a vigorous speech, declared with stirring emphasis that Canada was patriotic to the core, and would spill the last drop of her blood in the cause of Empire.

Mr. George Fenwick ("Otago Daily Times") spoke out no less decisively, declaring; that the recent offer by their Government of a Dreadnought, in its spontaneity, "was worth more millions than could be imagined; it infused into them a feeling of patriotism and loyalty which did much for the unity of the Empire."

For Australia, Mr. E. S. Cunningham (the "Argus." Melbourne) said they wanted not so much an "alliance of nations," but an affiliation; the relation of father and son, brother and brother. Australia, he held, should have a local navy, which might be the stepping-stone to an Imperial Navy.

Mr. G. Langlois, in response, said he came from the old province of Quebec. He was a French Canadian, but was born a British subject. He spoke in the name of two million and a quarter of French Canadians, and he assured them that they would stand by the Empire.

The general sentiment among the pressmen was that a voluntary force was better for morale than conscription for Commonwealth troops, in the event of a war in Europe.

The Prime Minister Archibald Primrose participated significantly in the three-week long conference and recruited newspaperman spies for his newly-forming intelligence agencies for 'Home Defence' (MI-5) and 'Colonial Defence' (MI-6) and an archiving agency (GC&CS, renamed GCHQ in 1946).^{[Precise location of citation needed]}

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