CABLE NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 148, 1 October 1910, Page 4

CABLE NEWS.

New Zealandiers have but one source of supply for their cabled news from the world's centres, and under present conditions there -seems to ibe chance of impvovemieniti, for the business is monopolised. Seeing that 'tihis is the fact, both the public and the newspapers are obliged .to take what in the judgment of the monopoly is good for them—and the judgment is not always superlatively good. In cable news .the New Zealander is supposed to be able to obtain a rapid view of the great occurrences in the centre of events. It is only by reading Home papers brought by the oecan mails thait one is really able to judge of tllie matters of moment the cables have said nothing about, and to conclude that the cable senders in London and elsewhere do not necessarily appreciate the New Zealamders' point of view. It is presumed' that records of horrors are as of much interest to New Zealanders as to Australians, ibut there seems to be reason for tihe decddied party coloring of most political cable news, and the sending of trivialities, really painful in their ■unimportance. The Premier during the discussion of the new Pacific cable in the House, (mentioned dn an apologetic, way in regard to the quality of cable news tliat lie recognised that the papers had to eater for their readers. Under the existing system as far as individual or collective papers are concerned, the matter of catering to the tastes of readers is not in their hands at all. Thiey are served out with so many yards of calble at so much), and they can take it or leave it. The readier in the far south, no matter what ilie likes or does not like, is catered for in exactly the same manner as -the reader in the far north. If the colored Tory twaddle that is aimceremoniously .dished up to all shades of opinion alike is catering tio the readers we ought to !be rearing a race of people in this country capable of thinking blue. Tf the new iPlacific caible will effect an alteration whereby it is possible to inflict various brands of cablegrams on a varied public it will confer a (boon. As far as London is concerned, the cable person there is under the impression that we adore anything the aristocracy do. from running away with a chauffeur to {jetting divorced from a duchess. He believes that we. are Tories of a particularly blue color, and ought to weep bitterly because thie Budget has made a millionaire landholder sell some of the estates his forefathers took from their neighbors. He would probably be surprised to hear tlia<t colonials had any opinions of their own, or that he did not form public opinion in this poor little country. We have before indulged in a wish that the selection of cable matter from th)e Jiijwe 'heap of everyday material available in London might be left in the hamfe of a 'trained colonial journalist, but examining this idea carefully one comes to the conclusion that London vastly changes most coloniiaSs and soon leaves them Britons of a decided cerulean hue. There is no in the world where one may forget (his most cherished beliefs so soon as in London. We are mot even sure that Sir Joseph Ward couild instruct the London cable man in the direction of dealing only with those matters that would interest every New Zealander. On the other hand. London h?i'S never been known to complain that io m Twxfc jOjetiing enough &tirrW news from New Zealand.