MINISTERS' NEWSPAPERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5390, 6 July 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

MINISTERS' NEWSPAPERS.

(From the Canterbury Pma, July 4.)

We remarked the other day upon the extraordinary conduct of the Government with respect to their advertising. They have started a principle of confining their advertisements to those journals which support them, and excluding altogether from any share of their patronage the whole body of the Opposition Press. The excuse they plead is economy. Pands, they say, arc short,* and it is necessary to be as sparing as possible in the expenditure. This might be all very well, so far as it goes, if it were the true motive. Economy is an admirable virtue in its place, and one the reputation of which is Sflre terba a great help to a Government, however little it is likely to be admired by thoSe who suffer from its exercise. But under the existing circumstances, the plea cannot be accepted. The Government economy is an economy with a difference. It is an economy all on one side. It admits of a lavish distribution of public funds when Government supporters are to be the recipients, and is never brought into play except when it can be directed against their opponents. Au economy of this kind looks suspicious. And there is one fact which entirely destroys the Government defence. For wherever there is but one paper which supports them, they advertise in that paper only ; no Opposition paper getting anything. But if ever it happens that two in the place are supporters of the Government, they at onco depart from their principle, and insert the whole of their advertisements in both alike. ' It is plain, ‘then, that a desire to save expense has exceedignly little to do with their not advertising in the other case. But this not ail. There is another point to be considered, and a very grave one. Among those who are profiting by this partiality’in Government expenditure are not a few members of Parliament -all of them ardent Ministerialists. This involves a consideration which the public ought to be alive to.' As a general rule, the receipt of public money by any member of the Legislature disqualifies him from continuing to hold his seat. We do not say that this is so in the present instance. Probably the members in question are saved by the exception which exempts from the operation of the disqualifying ■’clause members of companies having more than seven shareholders. But this is not a mere ease of technical qualifi-

tion. It is a case in which all the moral ele--meats of disqualification are substantially prefctmt. These gentlemen are all receiving pay as a condition of rendering Government support. The public money does not come to them in the ordinary course of business as'printers and newspaper proprietors. It is paid to them avowedly because they are adherents of the Government, and will be with-, T'Torawn from them to-morrow if they cease to ' render the expected service. This is the very state of things which it is the intention. of Disqualification Acts to prevent. The meaning of those -Acts is that members of the Legislature shall not be biassed by the inducements at the disposal of Government. But here we have, nof some individual member who has got himself, perhaps accidentally, entangled in a contract—a case no doubt quite proper for the interference of the law—but a whole class of members directly and deliberately brought under the Government influence.. It is idle to talk of Disqualification Acts if this kind of thing is to be suffered to continue. Tiiere is another feature in the case which wo think it right to bring before the public. The Ministers art themselves owners of a newspaper, and thus, by the course they have taken, are applying the public funds for their personal advantage. Probably- few of our readers are aware that the members of the present Government have a direct pecuniary inte-est iu a newspaper. Such, however, is the fact. .It will be remembered that some time since Sir George Grey announced a project for a sort of Ministerial circular, or broadsheet, which should lecord day by day for public information the oroceedings of the Government. This plan, no - ioubt, was found impracticable, and was never iurricd into effect. Instead of it, there has r >een started in Wellington n now morning *aper called the New Zealander, the property ■I a joint stock company. Of this company, ic principal shareholders are the members of he present Ministry, There is no room for mistake about it. We have the list before us, vliicli anyone -can verify by examination at "he Kegistry Office on payment of a shiliing. lie first on the list, and considerably the rgest shareholder, is Mr. Seymour George, ■j uewly-returned member for Hokitika, is name is down for 150 shares. It is ]jcretly well understood that Mr. George is only 1, nominal holder of these shares ; the real /irt is the Premier, Sir George Grey. Mr. dlancc, the Minister for Education, takes ■y shares ; Mr. Sheehan, the Native Minis- •, another fifty; Colonel Whitmore, the loiiiml Secretary, fifty more; Mr. Larnach, sly Cn'ouial Treasurer, and Mr.-Stout, the toruey-Geuoral, fifty each; and Mr. her, Postmaster-General, twenty. The list made up .to thirty by the addition of a , - über of allies hind haiigtrs-ou of the Gb-

vernment; but the principal shareholders are those we have mentioned. We need not say that, having thus invested their money in the speculation, Ministers were naturally desirous that it should pay. One obvious difficulty was the opposition they had to encounter from thdtold-established journal the New Zealand Times, which has lately appeared in an enlarged and improved form. It of course became their object to use any means of weakening this opposition, and of giving their own paper a superiority, and thoir Ministerial position enabled them to do so with effect. The Government advertising was at their disposal, and afforded a ready means of at once aecaring an important advantage for their own journal.. They have used it accordingly. All tho advertisements hitherto sent to the New Zealand Times have been discontinued, aud the entire mass of Government advertising is now handed over for, the exclusive benefit of Ministers’ own. property, the New Zealander. Now what does all this mean ? Simply that the Government are using their officiil authority for the furtherance of their personal interests. As private individuals they have gone into the newspaper business; as Ministers, they are assisting their enterprise with what is in point of fact a subsidy from tho public chest. For the more numerous the sources of attraction which a paper can command, the larger will be its subscription list aud the wider its circulation. The Government advertisements are Necessarily sought after, in one way or another, by all persons engaged in business ; and a monopoly of them, besides the immediate profits accruing, must contribute materially to promote the circulation of the paper enjoying it. By bestowing thi* monopoly on the New Zealander the Government give what is evidently a considerable source of profit, direct and indirect, to tho proprietors. And these proprietors are themselves. Tho profits of the paper are their, profits. Whatever they can do to depreciate the rival journal and to benefit their own, involves a direct pecuniary result in their favor. The advertising accounts are an item towards a satisfactory balance-sheet and towards the creation of a dividend. We can trace the public money from the Treasury straight into the purses of Ministers. In plain term?, they, having by virtue of their position the power of determining into whose pockets the money shall go, choose to put it into their own. This is the new principle of Ministerial morality. It was Wont to be thought dishonorable for public men to seek for any emolument from their office beyond what was attached to it by the order and with the sanction of'Parliament. But the present Ministers are too enlightened for such old-fashioned ideas. No scruples deter them from making the most of their opportunities, or from

ed! vartin* public trusts To very privib uses. And this gross exhibition of jobbery is the outcome of tfoe denunciations of indignant

virtue with which, the House was made to ring night after night by Sir G. Grey and his satellites, as they sat in the front of ‘the Opposition benches. ‘ They had only to become Ministers to show what their professions were worth.