THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1916 THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPER

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 236, 19 December 1916, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times.

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1916 THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPER

The Official Organ ot : The Franklin County Council. The Pukekohe Borough Council. The Tuakau Town Board. The Karaka Road Board. The Manukau County Council. The Raglan County Council. The Wairoa Road Board. The Papakura Town Board. The Waikato Biver Board. The Mercer Town Board. The Manurewa Town Board The Manurewa Road Board.

''We nothing extenuate, nor - tet down auoht in malice."

"Harper's Magazine" published a delightfully written article recently on " The American Country Newspaper." It would seem that the changes which have made themselves manifest in the New Zealand country newspaper are also common to those of America. We remember the day when the country press was an outsider in the business and social life of the town, when it was struggling for existence and had to be content with the crumbs that fell from the business men's table. We know its power—a power still vigorously growing—to-day, and are proud that the " Times " has tauen some part in bringing into being an organised and powerful country press. One could easily imagino that the writer in " Harper's" was dealing with New Zealand when he wrote: "Of old in this country the newspaper was a sort of poor relation in the commerce of a place. The newspaper required support, and the support was given, somewhat in charity, more or less in return for polite blackmail, and the rest for business reasons. The editor was a tolerated person. He had to be put on the chairmanship of some committee in every community enterprise to secure his help. Those days are past. Of course, our country papers are provincial. We know that as well as anyone. Hut then, so far as that goes, we know that all papers are provincial For the high gods of civilisation, being jealous of the press, have put upon newspapers this spell: that everyone must be limited in interest to its town and territory The beauty and joy of our papers and our little world is that we who live in the country towns know our own heroes. Who knows Murphy of the metropolis ? Only a few. Yet in our little town we all know Tom O'Connor—and love him. Who knows Morgan in the city'' Oue man in a hundred | thousand. Vet iu our town wo all know George Newman, our banker and merchant prince. The society columns of our city papers set down the goings and comings and the marriages and doaths of people who are known only by name. But our social activities, chronicled in tho couiihy press, id! of real peoplo whom wo all know. When we road

of a tin era I in our couDtry news- j papers, we do not visualise it as j a m-re church fiibt to a e the grard pt'song in their solemn amy

on dreßS parade. A funeral notice to us country readers means sonuthiiig more human and sad. Between the formal lnes that tell of the mournful affair we read many a tragedy; we know the heartache; we realise the destitution that must come when the flowers are cmud to tbe hospital. In lists of wedding guests in our papers we know just what poor kin was remembered and what was snubbed. When the girl at th> gloves marries, the n-?ws of the wediing is good for a forty-line notic, and the forty lia?a i i ths country paper gives them srlfrespect. Our papers, our littli country papers, seem drab and miserably provincial t> gtrangeis. yet we who Md the n read in their lines th» sweet intimate story of life. And all these touches of nature make utt wondrous kind. It is the country newspaper, bringing together the threads of the town lite, weaving them luto something rich and strange, setting the pattern 89 it weaves, and giving the cloth its colour by mixing the lives of all its people in its cubur pot. It is this country newspaper that reveals us to ourselves, that keeps our country hearts quick and our country minds open and our country faith strong. Therefore, m.n acd brethren, when you are riding through tbe vale of tears, and by chance pick up the little country newspaper, don't throw down the contemptible little rag wit*i the verdict that there is nothing in it. But know this and know it well: If you ciulJ take the clay from your eyes and read the little paper as it is written, you would find all of food's beautiful, struggling, sorrowing, aspiring world in it, and what you saw would make you touch the little paper with reverent hands."

Who will be pessimistic about the future ot the country newspaper when they realise its destinyV The article h "Harper's," from which we have taken a few sentences, is so full of sympathy and hope for the ountry press, so delightful in its linking together of tbe aspiration and jays and sorrows of the people with its paper, that one getß a deeper understanding of the power and uselulri(S3 ot the country press.