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Globe, Volume II, Issue 127, 27 October 1874, Page 4

We take the following as being an excellent suggestion (says an exchange) which we trust as we advance in the scale of civilisation to see applied to the colony. It is stated that the Tycoon of Japan, when he takes an interest in the publication of a newspaper at the Japanese capital, issues an order that all men of certain social and political standing shall take it or be beheaded. This is the right thing. But if the people of Japan are like unto some of the people of Auckland, the difficulty will be found to lie in this. Every one will take the paper, but there are not a few but would undergo half a dozen beheadings sooner than pay up the amount of their subscriptions. Calling spirits from the vasty deep when they won’t come is the only thing in the shape of a difficulty which can be compared to collecting newspaper accounts. Referring back to the Tycoon s admirable arrangement, we cannot speak of it in terms of sufficient encomium. There is a breadth of view and a comprehensiveness and expansiveness about the whole thing, which only a Tycoon could have invented. At the same time, we should scarcely care to edit a paper in the locality where that Tycoon dwells, unless we were possessed of his pre-conceived notions of the subjects we might be called upon to write about.