PIRACY OF TELEGRAMS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1567, 26 February 1879, Page 2

PIRACY OF TELEGRAMS.

The following telegram appeared under the heading, <c Press Association,” in the “Otago Daily Times,’ *and other journals yesterday:— Wellington, February 24th.

The “ Chronicle” to-night publishes a letter from the manager of the Press Association, in ■which, after quoting* the statements made by the “ Auckland Star” about the “ New Zealand Herald” copying its English telegrams on Tuesday last, he says “My answer to this is to place in your hand the original cable message of 81 words received by me at 8.34 p.m. on the 17th instant, a copy of which was sent direct to the ‘ New Zealand Herald’ and other papers from Wakapnaka that night,” The editor of the “ Chronicle” appends to this note “We have examined the original message received by the manager of the Press Association here. It contains all the news alleged to have b°en ‘ pilfered* from the so-called ‘ special’ telegrams. The ‘ Auckland Evening Star’ has, therefore, made as utterly unfounded charge ” The following is the very complete answer published by the Wellington “Post” last night to this justification of a literary robbery : The manager of the Press Association baa adopted a singular mode of answering the charges made against the association of pilfering in Sydney the contents of special telegrams sent to the “ Evening Post,” “ Auckland Star,” Christchurch “ Globe,” and Dunedin “Star.” His answer is to produce a cable message from Sydney conveying the news pilfered from the Sydney evening paper which is in partnership with the New Zealand journals above menturned. Seeing that the distinct charge made against the association was of pirating telegrams after their appearance in the Sydney evening paper, and before they could appear in the New Zealand papers for which they were intended, it will be perceived at once that the manager’s -o-called answer to the charge is more a confession than a denial. The specific charge was of stealing in Sydney the contents of special telegrams which were the property of ourselves and other journals with which we were in partnership in regard to the special service. The manager’s letter in no way refutes the allegation. tvo one ever doubted that he received the stolen news by cable from Sydney, for the obvious reason that he could not possibly get it in any other way Let it be understood that we attach no blame to him personady As manager of the association he is compelled to carry out the instructions of his principals, and his duty, therefore, is merely to receive and distribute the pilfered news which they have arranged for _ being forwarded to him from Sydney. He is not in a position to know of his own knowledge whether or not the news is pirated. _ The piracy has been organised by his principals, who simply send him by Sydney agents, the fruits of the robbery. Our readers w uld notice last night that while London cable messages of earlier date, having appeared in the Sydney “ Evening .«.vews” on Saturday, were pilfered Jby the Press Association, and published in yesterday morning’s “ New Zealander,” later messages containing some important items appeared only in the “ Post,” and not in the papers served by the Association, not having been published in the Sydney paper until the same evening, and the pirates consequently being unable to steal them until afterwards. Hence those items do not appear in the Association’s papers until this morning. But one or two fresh items which were in the Sydney papers last evening, and appear in our present issue, were duly pilfered and published in this morning’s “ New Zc'i lander.” The following is the article in the Auckland “Evening Star ” of the 24th instant: — In our issue of Tuesday last we referred to the systematic piracy of costly cable messages which lihs been re-orted to by the vaunted new Press Association, and is participated _in by journals claiming a name for respectability. A recent decision of the Appeal Court which declared this practice might bo carried on with impunity, and that a journalist has no right or inclusive ownership over his cable messages, though he must pay thousands of pounds to procure them, gives this disreputable system a semblance of legality. Journals have thus no inducement to incur heavy special expenses, the fruits of which they are absolutely robbed of. In the present state of the law, the natural effect is to reduce all newspapers to a dead level of the least enterprising in England, Australia, and America. However, the law does afford protection, and if it did not, there is sufficient sense of honor guiding the policy of leading journals to ensure newspaper proprietors in the enjoyment of advantages they purchase so dearly. No journal with any respect for its reputation would descend to petty pilfering to fill its columns with prints. Other principals, however, guide the course of the so-called leading paper of New Zealand. Mention was made in our last remarks of overtures held out to the proprietors of the Press Agency, and their peremptory refusal to do what the new morning paper association is now doing unsolicited. We have received by telegraph the following confirmatory letter from Captain Holt, a gentleman well known and highly respected in Auckland, and one of the proprietors of the Press Agency—-“To the Editor of the “Star,” Auckland.^ Sir— L am glad yon have exposed the “Herald’s” practice of pirating your special telegrams in Sydney and would mention that Mr Horton, of that paper, so'ne time ago insisted so far as he dare that we should do the same for the benefit of his p .per. My firm however, indignantly declined to have any thing to do with what we considered a high-y dishonorable proceed fig Thence we presume has arisen Mr Horton’s energetic endeavor here and in Australia to supplement the Press Agency. Yours, Ac., J. Bolt.” Comment upon the foregoing is needless. The law d-nies us protection of our property, hut if we cannot shame our contemporaries into deaistance from a practice which thev must know is_ discreditable, and fatal to newspaper enterprise, we can at least appeal to that sense of justice in the British public which is the best corrective of such buse. To-day’s “Herald” again publishes, under the heading of “Our Special Messages,” cable messages from a correspondent m London who is paid jointly by ourselves and Sydney journals. The telegram has been filched in Sydney by the associated poodles, and is now impudently published as “ Our Special Message ” And then men prate of commercial honesty.