FAVORITISM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 116, 22 June 1880, Page 2

FAVORITISM.

Tho report of the Civil Service Commission, a document covering some six columns of small type in the Christchurch Press, was laid on the table of the House of Representatives late on Friday night—after all possibility of telegraphing it had gone past. How comes it, then, the Times naturally wishes to know, that the Press was able to publish the document almost in full 1 Unless the report came into the Press' correspondent’s possession before it was available to the members of the House, it could not have been telegraphed. Those who know' anything of newspaper work, know that that report could not have been produced unless it had been in the printers’ hands at an early period of the evening. The telegraph office in Wellington is closed to press correspondents at ten o’clock, and according to the Times’ correspondent the report was not laid on the table of the House till 25 minutes past 12. It is thus apparent that the Press correspondent must have obtained a copy of the document surreptitiously, or have been unduly favored by the Government It is certainly unfair on the part of Ministers to show partiality of this kind, and it is unwise as well ; for it courts hostility from quarters that are only too glad to show it. Ho w the Press ob tai ued this report before it was laid on tbe table cf the House wants some explanation. The Times’ correspondent says that, to have the report placed on the table, the Hon. John Hall interrupted Dr. Wallis’ speech four minutes before the time for adjournment, and stole the opportunity the interruption gave to lay the document on the table. This trick w r as necessitated by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Chantry Harris, proprietor of the New Zealand Times, who already had the report in type, but could not publish it before it had come before the House. Surely there was no necessity for all this diplomacy over a document which was public property, and due as much to all the newspapers in the colony as it was to the favored ones who obtained copies.