The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, '96. THAT LOAN.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 143, 16 December 1896, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, '96. THAT LOAN.

Therk is a very lively discussion going on between the Wellington Post and New Zealand Times on tbe question as to who were the ten tenderers for the half-a-million loan. The Post asserts that the Premier " has improperly withheld information about the loan, and he must have a reason for it," and quotes precedents to prove that th 9 press— and the public — have a claim to be supplied with the information- The Post hints broadly that when Parliament assembles and the accounts of the Post Office, Public Trust, Console, and Government Assurance are presented to the House it will be known what proportion, if any, of the new 3£ per cents ths G/)yernuieut departments have taken. A,a^ so tbfittzyestmenr, if any, made by the Bank of Nesy Zealand must also be disclosed." T4« Times of yesterday waxed exceeding wrofab at this, and said : — " There could hape foen no objection to the press having its pspressntatives at the opening of the tendero of tbe balf-tuillioa local loan,

but the truth is that there are papers which cannot always be trusted. It " is even said that documents have been removed from departmental offices J owing to the anxiety of some news- * papers to anticipate their rivals, and when this sort of thing is defended, ■ as it has been, it is the safer plan to protect tenderers and prevent their names being made public by refusing * admittance to journals who may very possibly refuse to be bound by ordinary rules." This is not very logical, •, but it is for all that very dreadful and, were such a thing possible, our unlucky contemporary, the Post, , should " blush itself to death." But \ then, further on, the Times "gives ] itself away " by telling its readers that not the Public Trust Office, the i Fost Office Savings Bank, the Govern- i ment Lite Insurance, nor any other of ' the lending Departments of the Gov- ' ernment have taken a single sixpence of the local loan. Now, if the Weilington newspapers who " desire to ( anticipate their rivals " are wrong in , the one case, they must be equally in , error in the other. Therefore it would t be interesting to know how the Times " got ahead " of the Post and so be ( came in the position to say what i institutions did not tender for the loan. ' It appears to us that in matters of ( public interest such as this one paper ' should have the same facilities given as the other by " tbe powers that be ° , for obtaining information. If the j Government, for reasons known to | the Treasury Department, think it ; imprudent to disclose any of the j secrets of such Department well and > good ; but it occurs to us the plan adopted io the present instance ot > telling a half truth to the .New Zen- ( land Times is a blunder which may iw the end cost the colony dear. It is a political mistake for the Ministry to give the people, whom at ejection time they delight to call their masters, garbled information through an irresponsible channel.