THE BOYCOTT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 830, 31 May 1910, Page 6

THE BOYCOTT.

"THE DOMINION" AND STATE ADVERTISEMENTS. SOME SOUTHERN COMMENTS. The Prime Minister's references, in his Hokitika speech, to the amounts paid to various newspapers for State advertisements have been the subject of comment by some of our southern contemporaries.

The Christchurch "Press," in the course of an article on Saturday, said: "Tho Prime Minister quotes the amounts paid to various papers for Government advertising, and proves to his own satisfaction that the advertisements are distributed impartially. Yet this sense of impartiality permitted the Governmeut to pay The Dominion £116, while tho Government organ in Wellington received ,£1034 The fact that the evening paper in Wellington was paid .£1076 has nothing to do with the question; the discrepancy between the two morning papers, by which the one that criticises the Government receives one-sixth, of the Government advertising that is given to tho other disposes altogether of the Prime Minister's boasted impartiality."

Tho Christchurch "Evening News" of the same date observes:—"lt is rather futile of him to declare at Hokitika that 'the policy of the Government was to give a fair distribution between Opposition and Government papers,' when he, his colleagues, and the bulk of his party walked into tho 'noes' lobby and deliberately recorded their votes against a motion moved by an Independent member, that Government advertising should bo supplied to newspapers regardless of their political convictions, and with a view only to securing the best return to the taxpayers for the money so expended. By voting against that eminently sound and just principle, Sir Joseph Ward can scarcely complain if people place no reliance whatever on his protestations that the Government, does the fair thing between Government and Opposition papers, particularly as a close boycott is still being maintained. against the leading Opposition paper in the North Island. No one doubts for a moment that The Dominion could, after a decent interval, qualify for its full share of Government advertising, if it chose to moderate its criticism of Sir Joseph Ward and his Ministry, and it is significant that in the list of papers given by the Prime Minister lost night the journal getting the most Government advertising is one that was formerly a straight-out Opposition paper, but which has since seen fit to modify its policy."