The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1914. WAR NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 76, 19 August 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1914. WAR NEWS.

Tie public are not satisfied with the news cabled from Europe, and are hungering for more reliable, definite and fuller information regarding the momentous happenings that are taking place and are about to take place. Their anxiety and concern are perfectly understandable, .but they will have to possess their souls in -patience a little longer and be thankful for the scrappy, loose and somewhat contradictory news that is being cabled and published. The military authorities, it has to be remembered, have charge of the cables at the other end of the world, and they are allowing no information to pass that is not regarded, from their standpoint, as quite safe. That picturesque and interesting personality, the war correspondent, who formerly loomed as large o:i the stage as the commander of an army, is now a thing of the past. Ho is banished completely, and with him the despatches that formerly kept the puollc well apprised of the course of events. The news we are receiving, and will receive, will relate to happenings that have passed, not with events that are in prospect or in progress. There f will be no giving away information of possible advantage- to the enemy, as occurred in the Franco-Prussian war, when news of MacMahon's movements—that if successful might have altered the whole course of that war—.was first obtain*! 'by the Germans from a Lo-ndon war correspondent's despatch to Dig paper. There is a fog over the whole theatre of war, and it will be lifted only when it suits the convenience and judgment of the military and naval authorities. Still, the cables that are being publish-' ed arc not without interest. They giva one a rough outline of the various movements in progress. Details, of course, are carefully excised. Perhaps the papers of no country in the world are giving a better cable service than the New Zealand papers arc just now. This is a fact of which the public for the most part arc unaware, and therefore cannot appreciate. It comes about in this way. All the news we publish is supplied >by the New Zealand Press Association, which consists of the leading papers of : the Dominion. Coming to Australia are three distinet cable services, each Australian daily receiving but the one.' These services arc compiled in London from the cables and new 3 received bv the London newspapers and news agcii- , eies, who have representatives at all ' capitals in Europe and elsewhere, and | arc forwarded to Australia by an expert staff 'before they are ever printed by the London papers. There is another service, an American one, consisting of news from all over the world gathered by representatives of the American papers. The New Zealand Association; has its representatives in Australia, who have access to all the cables received in Australia from these different -sources, and immediately fdrfoinvard by cable whatever they think is of interest. Thus Zealand has a i selection of news from three London services and one American. Without doirht. it is the finest and most complete cable service in the; world. The cables that are' printed in the Daily morning are, for instance, much fuller than tiiose printed in to-day's Melbourne Age or Sydney Morning Herald, which, as we have, explained, have only the one \ service-, whilst we have a selection from four distinct service's. We in New Zealand are in this respect in a fortunate position. Many people' run away .with the idea that during u f llm . j; ke t|l( , sent, when there is such a demand for newspapers—with the News it is an unsatisfied demand —the papers are reaping a harvest. That is a fallacy. The extra cables, which are very costly, cat up more, than the slight profit there i* from the sale of papers. On Monday morning we printeel nearly twelve columns of cable matter, the daily average being about eight columns, just the. same. ne-ws that is printe'd by the biggest pape-rs in the. Dominion, and more than is published by any of the Australian papers, which is ,„-„„[ „f t |„. enterprise »f the New Zealand Press Associatbn "".I the desiro on the part of pre.vin- <••"<! papers lik,. th,. News to give their vcaele.rs the 1.,-m and fullest news that i-. available.. :.;