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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5051, 1 June 1877, Page 4

In the ordinary affairs of this world there is nothing so rare as unmixed good. The raging thirst for news, which is the epidemic of the day, is treated by the Press Agency with skill and tact, which are worthy of the highest praise, as well as of a more substantial reward. But the sources of its intelligence are occasionally fouled by an agent, and it seems impossible, even with constant watchfulness and the most careful filtration, to keep the stream pure and truthful. Yesterday we had the following announcement made in the Auckland telegrams : exists among the Highway Boards in consequence of the non-payment of the subsidies by the General Government." Now, to the ordinary reader these words convey, and by the sender of the message they are no doubt intended to convey, the idea that the General Government had been negligent of its duty in a very important matter in regard to the Road Boards of the Auckland Provincial District; that by wilfully keeping back the subsidies due to the local boards it was crippling them in the discharge of their functions, obstructing the progress of the North, and thus meriting generally an outburst of that dissatisfaction and indignation which Messrs. Grey, Wallis, and Rees are assidtiously bottling up for the approaching session. If the facts had been as stated by the Auckland correspondent of the Press Agency, we should have been as ready as Sir George Grey himself to condemn the Government for its laches.

Beforo bxirsting into eloquent denunciation, however, we took the trouble to inquire a little as to facts, and this is what we learned at the Colonial Treasury, the department upon which rests the responsibility for the due payment of the subsidies. There are one hundred and nineteen Road or Highway Boards in the Auckland Provincial District. To one hundred and nine of these Boards the subsidies due to them under the Financial Arrangements Act have been long since paid. The subsidies of ten Boards are not yet paid. The reasons for the non-payment in those cases given to us, are as follow: —Three of these Boards have neglected to forward to the Treasury the name of their bankers, so that the money payable could not be lodged to their credit, as required by law. Five Boards have neglected to give either the names of their bankers or a return of the value of the rateable property in their district; and two, having named their bankers, have not given the return of rateable property required. Information on all these points was asked by the Treasury by circular letter in November last, by circular letter again early in February, and by telegram on the 28th Feb., without result. If there be, as the Press Agency's agent informs us, " considerable dissatisfaction " amongst Highway Boards on tho subject of tho non-payment of subsidies, it must be confined to the ten whose negligence we have pointed out, and our readers can judge whether or not they have just cause.

To those who consider that in politics, as in love or in war, it is fair to injure the enemy by all means, the concoction

and publication of such a statement as that we are now commenting on would seem to be quite regular, and in the Lyttelton Times or in an evening contemporary it would be in character and a fitting place; but it appears to us to be an abuse of the confidence so generally placed in the bona fides of the Press Agency, when statements conveying a false impression are made, cunningly and deliberately, for party purposes, by its local contributors, and circulated widely with the weight of its authority and reputation.