GREVILLE’S TELEGRAM COMPANY AND THE “DAILY TIMES.”

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2648, 12 August 1871, Page 2

GREVILLE’S TELEGRAM COMPANY AND THE “DAILY TIMES.”

The Dai I;/ Times, in a recent issue, endeavored to write down Greville’s Telegram Company in a manner that is pecular to our contemporary. The article is question was brought under the notice of Mr Montrose, the Company’s New Zealand manager, who wrote a lengthy letter in refutation of the charges made against the Company, but which the Dally Times has not thought tit to publish. Premising by stating that on account of the grossly libellous nature of the article in question, he has deemed it his duty to submit it to the consideration of his principals. Mr Montrose goes on to say that his reply is intended to counteract the very serious damage which the article cannot fad to inflict on the Company’s reputation and business. We make a few extracts from his reply : Besides the indiscriminate opposition to the present Government, which has characterised the Daily Times, and the uriscruplousness with which innocent parties are often dragged in as instruments of attack, there was another motive for this article which is not difficult to detect. A writer for the Otago Daily Times, and the Dunedin com spondent of the Melbourne Argus, who has taken care to give the Argus such an account of the telegram libel case, and other matters, as would prodee a certain much desired effect, has, it I mistake not (and I, too, know something of what transpires behind the literary scen .s in Melbourne) received a bri.f on behalf of the myth dignified by the high-sounding title of ‘‘The Australian Associated Press ” and he is merely opening his case, making use of the Times for the purpose. I am not the advocate of the present Ministry ; my business is not with politics. . . . . . The article goes on to say “the rival institutions ran together for some months when the Press Association, carrying the additional weight of government influence against ir., gave up the unequal contest. - ’ You, Sir, ought to know' how grossly false is this statement is. The collapse of the Press Association was caused by ignorance in its organisation of the true principles of success in such institutions, by mismanagement, by its exclusive character, by the gross political bias in its telegrams, by the exhorbitant demands it made upon its subscribers, by the pressure of competition, by the gradual defection of subscribers, and ultimately (when the Association had dwindled down to three or four jourua's) the directors of the Otago Daily Times accepted certain offers made by us, and agreed to transfer the business to ( reville and Co. So far from the Press Association having the weight of Government influence against it, I can prove that it received at least one important concession from the Government which was not granted to us, and of which I was quite ignorant until recently. The article proceeds to charge our agents with coloring telegrams for political purposes. The Otago Daily Times should be the last to make such a charge. The article next attacks the scheme which I initiated for supplying the press of the colony with telegrams of parliamentary news during the session. After a number of objections to the scheme (some of w r hich I agree with) the writer goes on to say, “The really objectionable feature, however, which presents itself is the want of guarantee that the telegraphic summaries wdl be prepared by impartial persons. Will any one venture to say, recalling recent occurrences, that it would be at all an improbable thing if these summaries were revised, if not entirely prepared, by members of the present Ministry? What more congenial occupation would be relegated to Mr Fox, and how pleasantly would he chuckle while manipulating the telegrams?’ This is perhaps the basest insinuation in tb > whole article. It would be doing Mr Fox an injustice to reply to it. His bitterest opponent would never dream of making such base insinuations against him, and I believe that no journal in the colony but the Daily Times would give expression to them. Never to my knowledge has any telegram of ours been revised by or submitted to any Minister, and I challenge you to prove a single instance. . . . Your real objection to the system I propose for supplying parliamentary telegrams is not fear of them being impartial y prepared, but your determination to receive only such telegrams as will fall in with your own prejudices and foregone conclusions. The hollowness of the objection to receive

parliamentary telegrams from Greville’s Agency is .seen by the fact that the very person whom you propose to employ as your special agent during the session, and on whose impartiality you rely as something beyond the power of Greville and Co. to secure, has been actually selected by me for the special work of preparing parliamentary telegrams for our subscribers. 1 have too much confidence in him to suppose that he would so grossly ignore his instructions and the spirit of the regulations which govern the business of all Renter's agencies throughout the world, as to compile anything but impartial telegrams; but if there were anything to fear, it could certainly not be in the din ction of misleading a journal of which he has been so long an able and faithful correspondent.