Government—Good or Bad?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 152, 15 July 1937, Page 7

Government—Good or Bad?

• ABCH.

LOWE.

Sir,— Scrutiny and " criticism of the Government is one Of the duties of responsible newspaper journalism, but mere bogey-raising condeinnation sucn. as the Herald-Tribune i.s now foliowing as a set poliey is a .distmCt public disservice. ■ The carefully-prepared statement attributed to the president _ of the Farmers' Union and which was blazoned over two pages .of last evening?s issue^ togetheT witli your leading axticle, considered in , relation to the almost complete exclusion of the statement by th© Minister • of Agriculture aiid ateo your ignofing of the deciSions of the great dairy men.'s eonference at Hamilton, call for protest from the public, whom at is your duty to serVe With f acts as to- curreut happenings. The world to-day ik seething with inseeurity and fears because government by democratic systems has failea to provide an unpollnted iieWS serVice, without which it is impOSSiblO for the ordinary citizen: to distinguisli between bonesty and dishoneSty. * , That as our nowspapere are depenaent foi existeUco upon profit f fom the business of advertising the attainiUeilt of the undoubted adeal of newspaper journalists to xender the best serViCe possible is quite hopelesS is recogmsed by all who naVe given aiiy thOUght te the matter, and therefore the fremng of our public PfesS frofir domiriandeby the prOfit hunt is a pr6blem of firSt inrnnrtance. — YourS. etc.«

Hastings, July 15, 1937. [Columns and columnS Of space have been occupied in xeceiit months by reports of Ministerial doings and sayings. The telegraphed niessage coveting the Ministef's iemarks at the opening of the N.Z. Larmers ' Union conference was published in full With heavy headlines at the top of a column on our most important news page. Almost every day long messageS are telegraphed throughout the country recording the latest utterances of our elected rulers. ivfv Semple has arrived an Sydney, and his remarks are cabled across the Tasman by the New Zealand Press Association. Can Mr Lowe tell ua how to make a profit by paying for tolegrams and cablegrams and- publishing them free of charge, together with occasional letters from hinlself and others who impute disservice against the medium that provides them with the means of broadeasting their imputations?-— Editor.]