New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4204, 10 September 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1874.

"Sensational Telegraphing" is the heading which a "Wellington correspondent of a Southern contemporary prefixes to a passage of his letter in which he makes most just complaint of a discreditable system" initiated in this Colony, and now beincc developed into a nuisance and a scandal whicli newspapers should unite to repress. Under this heading the correspondent referred to says: —"Have your readers taken the trouble to read your contemporaries, North and South 1 If they have not, they should do so ; and they will understand how the telegraph is prostituted by unprincipled correspondents. Everyone remembers the instance at the beginning of the session ; but they have multiplied to an extent that is astonishing. In some papers not only have I seen the defeat of the Government announced, the names of the new Ministry set forth, and their policy sketched, but attacks on privato character made, and tho purest of inventions circulated, by those who delight in sensation. And nil this is done and sanctioned by the Department to the exclusion almost, certainly to the prejudicial delay, of bona fide telegrams." Tho correspondent is, perhaps, too wide in his allusion when ho asks the editor to whom he writes whether he has read the columns of contemporaries North and South. His remarks, fortunately, are not of universal application. Ho speaks of exceptions, not a rule; although it must be admitted that the exceptions are becoming so numerous as to require pointed attention and marked condemnation. It is painful to peruse the columns of some papers, in which there is permitted the publication of statements .which, on tho face of them, are pure inventions, or, at tho least, suggestions of minds of a depraved and evil character. Individual members of the two Houses have been equally subject to this annoyance with members of the Ministry; no man in public position, or discharging to

the best of his ability public duties, is safe from the slander of these so-called special correspondents ; and the system of slander is so continuous and unchecked that ii seems almost a hopeless task for anyone affected to deny or rebuke the assertions and aspersions that are made. It is, however, a duty which the Press owes to itself to denounce practices which are a disgrace to it, and which are becoming in this Colony so prominent as to reflect more or less directly upon every member of the profession. It especially devolves upon the Prcssof Wellington to make remark upon the matter, for Wellington correspondence evidently represents the head and front of tho rank offence to tho public sense, and to tho institution the character of which it so intimately affects. The correspondent concludes his remarks by referring to " all this being done and sanctioned by the Telegraph Department to the exclusion almost, certainly to the prejudicial delay, of bona fide telegrams," and here ho indirectly suggests what it may be found necessary for the Press to hring directly under the notice of the Department. The present rule is, that what is sent by telegraph for bona fide publication should be charged only at Press rates, .and, considering tho large amount paid by newspapers, it is not from the. Press that the first suggestions should come as-to any restriction in that particular, but it may be fairly questioned how far the Telegraph Department should be permitted to bo made the medium of libel, or the medium of transmitting mere individual opinions under the plea of such opinions being news. At present the Department is certainly chargeable only with liberality, while some of the correspondents who make use of it, and the appliances placed at their- disposal at a trifling cost, are chargeable with possessing souls suffused with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.