The Daily News. FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1912. "TRIVAL, FOND RECORDS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 58, 26 July 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1912. "TRIVAL, FOND RECORDS."

Mr. <!. W. Russell, during'a brief and breezy occupancy of the administration of the* (luvernmeiu Advertising Department, found time, as a practical printer, to make a loud complaint about the wa-le of money involved in the printing and distribution of all sorts and conditions of unnecessary Parliamentary re-

turn-. Every newspaper man in the country ought to be'at one with him oh Ibis subject. Custom, of courge, dies bard, and probably the House is quite innocent of any ulterior intent iir approving of the motion by the member for Timli'.ictoo that a printed return be made of the number of faulty bicuspids and sound molars in the mouths of the. I'oiiawoUaniics. .Jesting apart, many of l!:e i)>-pafhurn!ul returns that are pub-ii-lied are r. ■>'!,- ~, uundi wa:-.ie paper, v.dio-e ultimate mi-sioii in life is to wrap beer or sausages in. if ;t man with a long-handled shovel takes Sib 7oz. and !',;.•'! of clay and scoria out of an irrigation (lit.-li on the top of .Mount Eg- »"•""■• ll > ' Agricultural Department promptly recognises the fact by taking an elaborate picture of him, including his trousers, and. cmbodvin'' it in a

(.'oveniuieiiin! return disclosing the price ;il which Hie trout at the head of Luke Wakutipu are buying consols. An ounce of fact is always worth a ton of wisdom, anil we have before us a quiet, modest little roll «f Parliamentary paper.-! that have reached us from the Government Printing Office. They are not elaborate documents, nor arcs they particularly interesting, save to a r.elect few. Hut the hulk of these six attenuated rot urns have cost the country, £20!). for an average circulation of 1300 c.-'pks. Their fate, of course, is the; waste-paper basket, and possibly Bill! Smith, in the fullness of time, may, ■ whilst wrapping a loaf of bread in the outside cover of the '•Waitedickeasdon'tyouraiseit" loan proposals, cheek the figures, but if they are threepence out lie is not going to lose any sleep over it. A paternal Government frankly publishes the cost of the preparation and

ments themselves, hut as nobody ever reads them' this oblique open-hearted-ness counts for very little. It ia simply another illustration of the gentleman in the Mott Street Poker Club, who opened a jack-pofc on a pair of twos and bluffed the other Chinamen out by betting the limit. Nor does this extravagant waste of money stop with departmental and other returns. It slops over the edges into Hansard. The average man regard? Hansard as a sort of eldest ■ son of the Bible and the dictionary—* ■ record of George Washingtons*, and hat- ; diets, and bright lexicons of youth that cannot lie. As a matter of simple fact, it is a treasury of knowledge in which the member for Whysomewhoreorother reviews what he meant to say instead of. what he did say. The procedure is unknown to the general public, but it is intensely simple. A highly-paid Hansard staff of reporters take a shorthand note of tho proceedings of the House, each man "taking" ten minutes at a time. The notes are at once typewritten, and the chief of the. staff sends his typewritten copy to the member who hasspoken, for tho purpose of correction. The corrections, as a rule, are lovely. Members, in the calmer moments that succeed the heat of debate, delete whole paragraphs of what they have said, and substitute the more mature considerations of what they meant to.have said, or ought to have said. On the floor of the House, Mr. Jones remarks, "It's a beastly morning, isn't it?" but in Hansard lie is recorded to have said "Beloved, it is dawn." And so the long day wears on, and the farmers of the country, sitting on their doorsteps in the hush of tho evening, calmly read what their representatives did not say, and pay through the no3e for their ignorance. As a matter of simple fact, the printing department is the first one that the new Government ought to overhaul. Mr. F. M, B. Fisher, who has charge of it, is the son of a practical printer, and although this does not suggest that he has an expert knowledge of the trade, he certainly should liave sufficient inside information to make him "wise" to the extravagant excess which pertains to this particular branch of the public expenditure.