ABBREVIATED REPORTS OF THE BUDGET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 866, 16 July 1910, Page 3

ABBREVIATED REPORTS OF THE BUDGET.

REPLY TO MR NEWMAN,

Recently Mr Newman gave notice to ask the Government, whether they will enquire as to the advisability in future of having a summary only of the Budget telegraphed to country newspapers, and so save expense to the Telegraph Department and labour in newspaper offices where there is a limited staff ; or, failing that, they will place printed copies of the Budget in hands of postmasters, with the instructions to hand the same to each paper when its delivery is commenced in the House ? fNote.—At present the whole of the Budget is telegraphed to newspapers, irrespective of whether they are city or country journals, and, as most of the papers outside the four large cities have limited space, a large amount of labour is required to summarise and condense the report before printing.] Reply.—The experiment of making a summary of the Budget for small papers has been tried, but found to be almost impracticable. So far as the Post and Telegraph Department is concerned, the whole of the Budget is found to be required by nearly all the first-class papers in the Dominion. If a summary were made in Wellington, it would have to be put on the wires after the complete Budget was telegraphed, causing a double transmission of a great portion of the matter. The alternative of making a summary at district offices was a failure, for the reason that little could be done until the whole of the Budget arrived. Country newspapers are always at liberty to mention any particular portion of the Budget they require. The present plan is the most economical for the Department. It is not practicable to have the Budget printed sufficiently long in advance to supply country newspapers by post.