The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2399, 9 December 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1870.

It is high time that this ridiculous farce about the telegrams should be ended; and it appears, from the explanations given last night by the Colonial Treasurer, that it is in ou;r power to set it at rest. We were really not aware of being placed in so important a position, simply because the whole affair resolves itself into a question of hours and minutes. The fact is, we have ’ misunderstood the state of the case, and are not yet clear as to how it really stands between the Associated Press Company and the Wellington Independent. But there need be no concealment of the matter, nor need there have been from the first, had the editor of the Daily Times been guided by a real desire to have it explained. We had an idea that this charge of purloining—and wo believe

most other people have the same—was founded upon a telegram appearing in the Wellington Independent before it was possible to have been published in the Daily Times, containing information transmitted from Melbourne on a, particular day only to the. Daily Times, as agents of the Associated Press Company. But, so far as we now understand the case, the paragraph appeared not that day, but the next morning. If wo guess truly, we are thus far implicated in the matter. The Daily Times, in a spirit of exclusiveness, formed a Press Association, on the principle of including only one paper in each town. As this excluded ourselves and the greater part of the papers in the Colony having large circulation, it was necessary for self-defence to organise another Press arrangement, and one was made with

Greville and Co.’s agent : but for mutual benefit it was also agreed that the papers should telegraph to each other-. On the day that important news arrived of the capture of Sedan—the telegram in question—we received requests from several papers to send the news, and as the shortest way of doing so, to save ourselves the trouble of writing, we sent them extracts from the Daily Times “ Extra.” Wo believe this to be the simple explanation of the matter. The Wellington Independent with praiseworthy reticence refused to give the source of its information. While thanking that paper for the honor with which the secret has been kept, so far as we ourselves are concerned, we should, if asked, have given, and now give them leave to communicate the fullest information to the Government, the Evening Tost, the Daily Times, and the country. We feel very sorry to bo the means of taking so fertile a source of abuse of the Government from our contemporary, the Daily Times ; and can understand now, how it is that the threats of taking it into the Supreme Court have not been carried out. Had the real state of the case been made known to us, we should have been able to save the editor of the Daily Times much bluster, the Government much trouble, and the country much expense. We will not allow ourselves knowingly to be mixed up with any such paltry artifices as have been evidently resorted to, to bring discredit upon any man, any newspaper, or any Government. We have other work to do. Had the case been really as represented by the Daily Times, we should have been the first to condemn such a violation of the sacredness of the telegraph. We have now done our duty in clearing up our share in the mystery, and we have done with the matter so far as the public is concerned. We leave the Daily Times , the Wellington Independent, and the Government to fight out what remains unexplained.