Current affairs information: Chairman's opening remarks

The conference sessions are entitled ‘Instant Information in a Changing Scene’. You will not need me to tell you that ‘current affairs information’ and ‘instant information’ are not necessarily always one and the same thing. If I am asked the exact date of the Battle of Trafalgar, and am able to reply at once, then I am giving instant information, but not on a topic of current affairs. Alternatively, on being required to find the very latest official Government statement on a particular subject, and on being given half a day to do so, I am handling a current affairs enquiry on a far‐from‐immediate basis. A very obvious distinction: but one which I know we shall bear in mind throughout today's Conference.