Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY JUNE 30, 1916. LAMENTATIONS OF A COUNTRY NEWSPAPER.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 152, 30 June 1916, Page 4

Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY JUNE 30, 1916. LAMENTATIONS OF A COUNTRY NEWSPAPER.

(With which is incorporated The Tai tape Post and Waimarino News.)

In the early days of civilisation it was laid .down ■ tliat self-preservation is the first law of nature. It is a trite saying, although the force of its truth has never been ding-donged into our understanding as it is at the present time. The "War! What wickedness, what robbery, lias been perpetrated in the vfiisbbol/.th of those two words. They have been made to endow the above quoted old saw with an inscrutable intensity of meaning, with an unlimited and complicated sense. We do not know whether this old precept or aphorism was uttered as a general instruction to mankind, or as a particular caution to some private Inquirer; whether it was applied to some single evasion or laid down as a. universal rule of life, and we don’t care a tinker’s cursory observation. We are unhappily conscious that "the war,” used honestly and dishonestly, has forced it upon our attention, and impressed it upon our senses so indelibly that the world’s accumulation of inkerasers couldn’t possibly move it, or oven dull its significance. For, of all vocations, industries and institutions, useful and necessary in any civilised country, none have suffered by “the war ’ ’ to anything approaching so disastrous an extreme as newspapers. The ever-increasing demand upon a provincial newspaper’s mean earnings' are assailing newspapers just as persistently and as constantly as the Huns have' postered Verdun. In vain we have searched for means of self preservation, but, look where we wild, we are nu t with the bayonets of the army that supplies us with food and clothing, the claymores of the gang from whom wo must have ink and paper; we are metaphorically riddled with post and telegraph shrapnel. However, as we lie prostrate and bleeding, the old Adam in us impels us to make another, and last, effort at self; preservation, only to find that vendors of balm for our wounds have taken to sniping us.

The forces opposed to country newspapers are overwhelming, and the time has now come to adopt the methods of other businesses, or capitulate —go under. Wo are profoundly convinced that the only road to a newspaper’s salvation li'es through a fair, honest handing on of some of the difficulties that beset them to their customers. We are sharing the troubles of the baker, butcher, and of our other tradesmen; the Government has doubled its prewar charge upon us for transmission of telegrams and cables; the paper we need is costing us from one hundred to one hundred and fifty percent, more; not one of our needs can now be obtained at pre-war prices, and yet we have modestly and Uncomplainingly borne the ever-increasing burdens, until now they have overwhelmed us. Self preservation is the first law of Nature, and it seems that our self preservation can only be assured by passing on some of our burdens to the pnb- ’ lie, as aD other trading institutions and firms have done. We are confident of the sympathy of our friends, and our worst enemies cannot accuse ns of using the war shibboleth to extort from them dishonest profits. In fact we are not expecting or anticipating profits; all we are setting out to do is to secure our self preservation. The Taihape Daily Times will continue to be sold at one penny, and struggling tradesmen will not be asked to add to their financial responsibilities in our favor. We propose slightly increasing our charges for Government, local body, and administrative department advertising first; in fact, they have already been notified of the higher rates to be charged. Our casual advertising charges will be raised on July ,Ist and 'thereafter, from three and sixpence per inch per insertion to four shillings per inch per insertion, and, of course, in sympathy, charges for auctions and stock sales, which all come within the casual category, will be- proportionately revised. This journal has refrained from passing on any portion .of its hugely accruing burdens, while many of its larger and older established contemporaries have taken that course many months ago. We are not out to exploit; wo only desire to maintain our existence, our self preservation, and we are overwhelmingly convinced that our patrons, the people of our progressive territory., will sympathise with ns and will welcome the effort we are making to preserve for them a truly modern, vigorous, and virile daily newspaper.