THE GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 848, 19 July 1878, Page 3

THE GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING.

The Christchurch Press again takes up its parable against the Government advertising job, as follows :

“Wo remarked the other day upon the extraordinary conduct of the Government with respect to their advertising. They have started a principle of confining their advertisements to tbose'journals which support them, and excluding altogether from any share of their patronage the whole body of the Opposition Press. Thß excuse they plead is economy. Funds, they say, are short, and it is necessary to be as sparing as possible in the expenditure., This might be all very well, bo far as it goes, if it were the true motive. Economy is an.admirable virtue in its place, and one the reputation of which is sure to be a great help to a Government, however little it is likely to be admired by those who suffer from its exercise. But under the existing circumstances the plea cannot be accepted. The Government economy is an economy with, a difference. It is an economy all on one side. It admits of a lavish distribution of public funds when Government supporters aro to be the recipients, and is .never brought into play except when it directed agaihst its opponents. An economy of this kind looks suspicious. .And,there' is one fact which entirely destroys, tho Government 'defence. Tor wherever there is hut one paper which supports them, they advertise in that paper only ; no Opposition paper getting anything. But if it ever happens that two papers in the place are supporters of the Government, they at once depart from their principle, and insert the whole of their advertisements in both alike. It is plain, then, that a desire to save expense has exceedingly little to do with their not advertising in the other case.

But tliis is not all. There is another point to be considered, and a very grave one. Among those who are profiting by this partiality in Government expenditure are not a few members of Parliament—all of them ardent Ministerialists. This involves a consideration which- the public ought to be alive to. As a general rule, the receipt of public money by. any member of the Legislature disqualifies him from continuing to hold his seat.; We do not say that this is so in the present instance. Probably the members in question are saved by the exception which exempts from the operation of the disqualifying clause members of companies having more than seven shareholders. But this is not a mere case of technical qualification. It is a case m which all the moral elements of disqualification are substantially present. These gentlemen are all receiving Government pay as a condition of rendering Government support. The public money docs not come to them in the ordinary course of business as printers and newspaper proprietors. It is paid to them avowedly because they are adherents of the Government, and will lie withdrawn from them to-morrow if they cease to render the expected service, i There is another feature in the cans which we think it right to bring before the public. The Ministers are themselves owners of a newspaper, and thus, by the course they have taken, are applying the public funds for their own personal advantage. Probably few of our readers are aware that the members of the present Government have a direct pecuniary interest in a newspaper. Such, however, is the fact. There has been started in Wellington a new morning paper called the ‘ New'Zealander, the property of a joint stock company. Of this company the principal shareholders are the members of the present Ministry. There is no room for mistake about it. Wo have the list before us, which anyone can verify by examination at the Registry Office on payment of a shilling. The first on the list, and considerably the largest shareholder, is Mr Seymour George, the newly returned member for Hokitika. His name is down for 150 shares ; the real owner is the Premier, Sir George Grey. Mr Ballance, the Minister for Education, takes 50 shares ; Mr Sheehan, the Native Minister, another 50 ; Colonel Whitmore, the Colonial Secretary, 50 more ; Mr Larnach, lately Colonial Treasurer, and Mr Stout, the Attorney - Oeneral, 50 each ; and Mr Fisher, Post-master-General, 20. The list is made up to 30 by the addition of a number of allies and hangers-on of the Government; but the principal shareholders are those wo have mentioned. We need not say that, having thus invested their money in the speculation, Ministers were naturally desirous that it should pay. One obvious difficulty was the opposition they had to encounter from that old-established journal the 1 Now Zealand Times,’ which has lately appeared in an enlarged form. It" of course became their object to use any means of weakening this opposition, and of giving their own paper a superiority, and their Ministerial position enabled them to do so with effect. The Government advertising was at their disposal, and afforded a ready means of at once securing an important advantage for their own journal. They have used it accordingly. All the advertisements hitherto sent to the ‘ New Zealand Times ’ have been discontinued, and the entire mass of Government advertising is now handed over for the exclusive benefit of Ministers’ own property, the ‘New Zealander.’ New, what does all this mean ? Simply that the Government are using their official authority for the furtherance of their personal interests. ... We can trace the public

money from the Treasury straight into the purses of Ministers. In plain terms, they, having by virtue of their position the power of determining into whose pockets the money shall go, choose to put it into their own.