POSTAGE ON NEWSPAPERS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2650, 15 August 1871, Page 3

POSTAGE ON NEWSPAPERS.

We are glad to see that on agitation has been commenced in favor of the gradual abolition of the obnoxious tax on newspapers. In a short time New Zealand will be the only colony in the Australian group in which the penny rate remains in force. In Victoria the rate of postage has been reduced to a half-penny ; while in some of the other colonies it Las been abolished altogether. The Evening Post of a recent date has .an article on the subject, and the argument raised in it. is fairly applicable the colony There are some features of special hardship to New Zealand in this postage on newspapers. In this Province, for example, at the time the annual amount of subscription to the papers was fixed, they went free by post. When the penny rate was imposed, seven-tenths of the country subscribers to Wellington journals declined to pay the portage in addition, and thus newspaper proprietprs were compelled to find some other means than the Post Office, by which to forward their journals to the country districts. In England, with its network of railways and forwarding agencies, this could have been easily and cheaply done, but not so here. Country subscribers in the province are scalteicd over a large area, and this necessitates making up numerous small p irccls and establishing numerous agencies, borides paying the post of carriage by Cobb’s coaches. The system is enormously troublesome and costly to the newspaper proprietor. He pays cost of transit, wrappers, addressing, making up bags, and annual fees to some fifteen agents besides, in the Hutt, Wairarapa and West Coast districts ; while jie obtains not a penny mi re for his journal from his country subscribers than the usual town subscription, although the additional disadvantage has to be borne, that newspaper country accounts are very costly to collect. Were the newspapeis allow ed to go free by post, all those drawbacks would be removed without costing the Post Office more than a very small amount of extra trouble or expense. T his is obvious, because that department already possesses all the machinery of a receiving, forwarding, and di tributing agency for the ordinary mails. These are carried throughout every part of the Province by Cobb’s coaches and other conveyances, and delivered at the local Post Offices in every centre of population. The sole additional expenditure, therefore, that would be necessary to throw the Post Office open for the free transmission of newspapers would be the very trifling extra charge made by the mail contractors for carrying an increased weight in the bags. This alone can scarcely be urged by the Government as a sufficient reason for continuing to impose a postage rate, which presses heavily upon newspaper proprietors, and checks the diffusion of useful information amongst the great mass of the people. We have ever held the opinion that the establishment of a first-class Colonial newspaper, published at Wellington as the seat of Government, and circulating throughout the whole Colony, would materially raise the status of the Press, and confer vast advantages upon the settlers in New Zealand, but so Jong as this postage rate is imposed, such an undertaking would have no chance of success. A journal of the kind could not compete with those published in th several Provinces, simply because the postage w'ould cpormoualy enhance its price. An insuperable barrier would thus be'raised tp its general circulation, and without that such a journal, got up at a large outlay, would prove unremunerative. It is a great misfortune that New Zealand does not possess a journal of this stamp, and it is a circumstance to be deplored, that the niggardly, cheeseparing action of the Legiriature in maintaining this postage rate should be the chief reason why such is the case.