The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2, 1886. PRESS TELEGRAM RATES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1396, 2 November 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2, 1886. PRESS TELEGRAM RATES.

Our Invercargill contemporary, the Southland Neivs, gives voice to a com plaint which should have the sympathies, of the public as well as of the evening journals generally, viz, that they are most unfairly treated in the matter of press telegarms. It is not, perhaps, generally known that while the morning papers are supplied with as much telegraphic news as they like to receive at sixpence or eightpence a hundred words, according to the hour at which it is received, the evening papers are only allowed 1000 words at the sixpenny rate except during the sitting of Parliament, when 1500 words is the maximum, all over that amount being charged at the late of a half-penny a word. This is manifestly a very unfair handicap upon the evening press, which has thus to pay for every 1000 words after the first 1000, over eighi times as much as is paid by a morning paper, each additional thousand costing to the former only 5s as against £2 is Bd, the charge to an evening paper. Writing upon this subject our contemporary says : —“ The question naturally arises—Why should the evening papers be requi ed to pay more than morning, and should they not get messages cheaper, taking all the circumstances into consideration ? The telegraph offices must be kept open all day to accommodate the public, and no special arrangements are necessary for meeting the wants of evening papers, while they are kept open all night to benefit the morning papers solely. Moreover, night work is necessarily more costly to the Government and trying to the operatives than day worje. Why evening papers should not be treated as liberally as morning ones is one of those questions to which it is difficult to find an answer. On its merits the answer would be easy enough, but hitherto political, rather than commercial, reasons have prevented the doing of equal justice. Of course more work would be thrown upon the day operators but not to such an extent as to interfere with private or Government messages, which would, as heretofore, take precedence of press matter. It may be said that the public have no great interest in the matter, but this would be due to a misconception, for although the evening papers do strive to give full telegraphic news they are not able to furnish the amount they would if the existing monopoly of cheap rates to morning papers were abolished. It seems almost incredible that so great a difference should continue to exist that the papers published in the evening should pay eight 01 nine times as much for their telegrams as their morning competitors The solution of the difficulty will probably be only arrived at through Parliamentary action, for it is next to impossible to force the department out of its accustomed groove. The cherished motto of all civil servants appears to be what is is right, and what is’ right must be eternal. It is always being left behind in the march of progress, and can only be got to move on by a rigorous application of the spur.” We agree with our contemporary that it is high time an effort were made to remedy the present unjust state of things and we trust that next session some of our members will take up the cause of the evening papers in this matter, which is really also the cause of the public at large.