THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1287, 13 September 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1872.

" It seems to me extraordinary to talk in one breath of the worth, importance, and independence of the Press, and in another breath' to speak of their liability to be bribed and corrupted by paltry official advertisements and printing. Such an idea of the morality of the Press reminds me of tho remark of Sheridan in reference to the East India Company, when he said, ' They wield the truncheon with one hand and pick the pockets with the other.' " This was the comment made by Mr Gisborne upon a portion of what may by courtesy bo called a speech, emanating from that eminent discoverer of Ministerial jobbery and corruption, Mr Arthur Collins, the member for Collingwood. Mr Gisborne commented thus, and suggested this : — " I think the honorable gentleman might have had the candour, when he quoted from a return which he himself moved for regarding tbe cost of advertising and printing in the different newspapers— l say he might have had the candour to quote those portions of the return in which- it is clearly shown that the Opposition journals had received a larger share of those advertisements and printing than the other papers. The papers published in Auckland and Dunedin which support the Opposition have obtained a much larger share of those advertisements . and printing than have those papers which support the Government." This appeal to the "candour" of Mr Collins, as we once before said, elicited' nothing from that self-styled " gentleman " except the statement that he had given the figures as he had got them, aud, not having all the figures in black aud white, though he must have well known of their existence, be did not give them. He preferred to permit a garbled statement to go forth to the world, and its going forth in even an aggravated garbled form was promoted by the telegraphic agency which has shown itself/ throughout the present session of Parliament, to be unworthy of the trust which was hitherto reposed in it. A similarly garbled statement was published by a Wellington paper of unenviable notoriety, and by two of the West Coast members it was made the ground,

or one of the grounds, of their opposition to the Ministry. The utter groundlessness of their speech and action, in this particular, has since been exhibited by the publication of the full return relating to Government advertising and printing, but, when the time comes for them to address their constituents, they will,no doubt, if unanticipated by a statement of the facts, be loud in their declamation of the "demoralisation of the Press." . By other journals in the Colony this statement has already been made, and it is only necessary for n3 to quote from the statement the salient facts. These are thus summarised by our Canterbury contemporary, the Lyttelton Times : — "Bearing in mind the sum and substance of the charge— that the support of newspapers was bought by tbe Government with large orders for printing and advertising, or that much the largest orders were given to such papers as did support them — we can only arrive at the truth, or something approaching to it, by an analysis of the return. The Auckland papers come first on the list, and we find that while the New Zealand Herald— in violent opposition during the whole of the recess — received close on L4oo,the Soutlwrn Cross, which is usually called Mr Vogel's paper, got a trifle over ~L2QQ i or not much more than half. In the case of the Thames papers, we are not in a position to say what their politics really, are, and therefore pass them over with the remark that the Advertiser, in which we lately road an article that could not be called favorable to the Government, had tho lion's share of the public advertising and printing. Virtually, there is only one paper in Taranaki. The News has had a sort of intermittent and wheezy existence, it is true, but if the Government wished the notifications they made to reach the public generally — and we presume they would — they were bound to employ the columns of the Herald. Of all papers in the Colony, the Wellington Post has the least to complain of. Taking the relative position of the two papers published in that city, bearing in mind that the one circulates all over the. Province and that the other— as is the case with all evening papers — has merely a town circulation, the Post has been most liberally dealt with both in advertising and printing. Again, there is no paper in the Colony which has so viciously, wo may even say foully, abused the Government, individually and collectiveljr ; as the Wanganui Herald. It gets about L 250 of the public money from tho same Government, while the Chronicle, favorable to the Ministry, gets less than a fourth of that sum. But the most striking fact of all i 3, that the Otago Daily Times, an opponent of the Government from the very day they took office, and in one respect, peculiarly, almost personally, antagonistic to them, received more of the public money for advertising than any other paper in New Zealand. This miserable charge, which we should not have considered it necessary to discuss but for the misrepresentations that have been locally made, is entirely disproved by the return supplied by the Government, and to which we again invite the attention of the public. Before it can be substantiated, two things must be clearly proved. Starting from the basis that it is the duty of the Government to advertise mainly in such papers as they believe will give most general publicity ; and that, further, it is their duty to get their printing done at the cheapest rate consistent with efficiency — those who charge them with dispensing both so as to secure or reward support must prove beyond any doubt that they have not been guided by the rules wo have laid down. When they do this, the chargo will have some shadow of foundation. Till then, it is simply a baseless and malicious calumny." On the same subject the Nelson Colonist says : — "The whole story of the Government printing lies in a nut-shell. Tho fact is, that the Ministry, with laudable commercial instincts, have carried their advertising to the largest circulated papers, and their printing, mostly, to the best business channels for completion, and, we believe, have set about it in a business fashion too, with specification, tender, and price. They have distributed the work to their supporters and antagonists almost alike, for, we think, in the aggregate the per-centage in favor of Government papers will be found to be very small indeed, and that those who are accused of the blindest subserviency have not benefited much more than the most rabid Oppositionists, while at Wellington more than the usual amount of work found its way into the newspaper offices through the strike of the compositors in the Government Printing Offices last year." • Prominent, and, we may also add, eminent as a supporter of the late Ministry, the Colonist was, of course, pointed to as an example of the presumed " demoralisation" of the Press, because its proprietors received L 482 of Government "patronage." But what is the fact? Simply that of this amount there was only £130 for advertising, and ,£352 for the printing of a voluminous work on Native affairs, the production of which it was impossible for the Government Printing Office to undertake. To the West Coast printing offices, the payments were— West Coast Times £229 for advertising, and i? 26 for printing ; Grey River Argus £22% for advertising, and £44 for printing ; Westport Times £95 for advertising, and £18 for printing ; Greymouth Star £58 for advertising, and £13 for printing — the Greymonth evening paper being more patronised by the Government than auy other evening journal in the Colony, with the exception of those in Wellington and Dunedin. In each of these instances, and we have little doubt it was so in all others, the Government as a Government had nothing whatever to do with the direction of their "patronage." In the hands of local officers lay the distribution of the work ; in at least three instances one-half of the total amount quoted is represented by the advertising of electoral rolls ; and in every instance, we undertake to say, there was, on the part of Government officials, the reverse of a disposition to be extravagant. In one instauce, it is well known, there was au attempt at " demoralisation," but the attempt was in the direction of demoralising the Government, not the Press, and the Government wisely dedined to be demoralised, or to pay the account presented to it without a deduction to the tune of forty pounds ! It is not impossible that such a circumstance wight have come under the notice of the member for the Buller district, yet he ipoke and voted against the Government jeoause it "had abused its patronage —especially in demoralising the Press by a

means of Government advertising !" How fine people's feelings become when they "career" in politics ! How false the suggestion that the Ishmaels of the Press sell their sentiments and their souls for a few inches of " advertisement !" " How absolute the knave is" who can seriously make such a sanguinary suggestion !