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Show IIORTHCLIFFE US 1 ; HOST TO 411 U. 8. ! CORBOIEIS! i LONDON. Dec. 27. Forty American newspaper correspondents who arei visiting London with President Wil- son's parly were entertained at lunch- eon today by Lord Northcliffe at (hoi Times office and at dinner tonight by! the newspaper proprietors' associa-; tion. j. The principal speeches delivered at i the luncheon were by Baron Burn- ham: Richard C. Oulahan of the Newj i York Times: David Lawrence, of the j jNew Y'ork Evening Poht; Herbert! jSwope. of the New York World; Ad-j miral Sims, commander of ihc Amerl-i Amerl-i can naval forces, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York. j Lord Northcliffe in welcoming his guests said they would find absolutely no hostility to tho United States in England. Momentary instances of ir-1 ritation had faded away and in the same way he was certain some of the supposed difficulties about the. coming com-ing peace conference would disappear in the capable hands theL'nitcd Stales and Great Britain -had placed them. Lord Northcliffe added that the Amcr-I Amcr-I lean journalists had so'ph the kind of welcome President Wilson had received receiv-ed in London and that it was more than remarkable by that it was unprecedented. unpre-cedented. Baron Burnham, in extending cordial cor-dial welcome t'o the guests at luncheon made a strong plea for the abolition of all censorship. lie said that if there had been more real freedom of the press, and if socrets had beon more fully revealed, there would have been no war. Letters of regret were received receiv-ed from John W. Davis, the American ambassador and the Earl of Reading, British ambassador lo the United States. The guests included, in addition to a number of London and provincial Journalists, Sir William George Tyr-roll, Tyr-roll, former foreign secretary,' Mr. Skinner, the American consul general, gen-eral, and Sir Roderick Jones, head of Renter's Limited. Sir George Riddell. the publisher, in a speech said he believed the statements state-ments that a censorship had been decided de-cided on for the peace conference, were inaccurate. "We shall start thp conference without with-out censorship." Sir George continued, "but it will be open to the conference to pass resolutions as to certain matters mat-ters being kept secret. I sincerely hope that they will not take that course. 1 am assured that the British Brit-ish government is strongly in favor or I complete freedom of the press." ( Tho American journalists will be' received at the foreign office -Saturday morning. Afterwards they will be tendered a reception in Downing street by David Lloyd George, the British prime minister. |