The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1584, 18 March 1879, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1879.

A battle re the question of Government advertising is disturbing the journalistic air of Christchurch. The “ Press” and the “ Lyttelton Times” are hurling rocks at each other with scientific precision and a considerable amount of zeal. The latter fired up on the 13th instant with regard to an article written by the “ Sydney Morning Herald,” accusing the New Zealand Government of buying our voluminous contemporary by means of giving to it the sole profits attached to Government advertising in Canterbury, thus excluding the “ Press ” from all profits attached thereto. And so the “Lyttelton Times” in a fit of decided sulks, expressed its disgust that the Sydney paper, which can really know so little about its Canterbury contemporary —a fact that shews that the Sydney organ is living in the most outer darkness—should impute to it low motives and an inferior tone of commercial morality. And then the “ Lyttelton Times ” affirms, taking its statements broadly, that it obtained the contract for advertising in 1876, by offering lower terms that the “ Press,” and has kept the contract since that date because the “Press” refused to disclose its circulation. But

surely our voluminous contemporary lias overlooked one little circumstance. The contract the “ Lyttelton Times ” obtained in 1876 was not for the Government advertising 1 as a whole, “ but for a very inconsiderable portion of it, viz., such public notifications as were required to be, or were usually published in the ‘ Provincial Government Gazette ’ in Canterbury.” The amount of those advertisements is extremely limited. The fnhlishiny of Government advertisements as a ivhole has never been offered for tender at all. It is merely this extremely small section of them that has been so dealt with. And yet the “Lyttelton Times ” has the audacity to try and mislead the public by protending that tenders wore called in 1870 for work connected with Government advertising as a whole. Wo repeat — Tenders have newrleen called for publishing G overnment advertisements as a whole. The entire case is so transparent that wo wore completely transfixed with surprise when wo road the audacious statement of the “ Lyttelton Times.” It may bo unpleasant to have a distant journal making disagreeable remarks on the manner in which Government advertisiugis conducted inNow Zealand. The favored Governmental journals may not find it pleasant to have the secrets of the prison-house revealed to a criticising Australian audience. But they should not descend to drawing on their imaginations for facts. Jeames may bo ashamed of his plush, but surely he should not tell naughty stories in consequence. Tue Government journals have, pecuniarily speaking, an easy time of it. The public money flows into their coffers, and their proprietors wax fat. But they cannot expect to have it entirely th«ir own way, and, when a few home truths are told them they had much bettor keep quiet. The public are not fools, and when the “ Lytteltcn Times” tries to tell the public that the Government advertisements have been put up to tender, and it is a well-known fact that they have not, the great eight-pfgo moral engine only wastes its breath. The “ Lyttelton Times ” has appropriated our Globe telegrams, and placed them mder the head of “ Special” to itself, and row it deliberately endeavors to mislead time unacquainted with the real facts connected with Government advertising in Canterbury. Wo had hoped that, wita the increase of our contemporary’s siie, would have arisen an increased sense of moral responsibility. But the big body does not always contain the groat soul. Wfc«a fatty degeneration sots it, the wheels of the mind are apt to become clogged with the weight of the body.