The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1915. MISCHIEF-MAKERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1915. MISCHIEF-MAKERS.

There was a lime when the London Times was regarded as the safest and sanest of the British Press, but since it came into the Northeliffe ring it has fallen from its high pedestal. For proof of this one has but to notice the character and quality of the extracts that are daily cabled to the New Zealand Press. The very caption, "Times-Sydney Sun cables," stamps them as either unreliable, •sensational, cheap-jack, wishy-ivashy, irrelevant or puerile. The pity is that the Press Association could not shut down absolutely on these vaporings and so save the newspapers cable expense and the public a good ileal of annoyance. Lately the Times and other members of the Northelill'e journalistic pack which are seeking to "run" the affairs of the nation at this time of crisis, have been doing their best to drag in the colonies in their efforts to damage the present Home Ministry, and last week cabled back to New Zealand a message from the Christehurch representative of the Daily Mail to the effect that there fa » foolino in the Dominion

that ''Mr, Asquith is unfitted temperamentally to guide Britain through a great war." No doubt this precious opinion was duly "starred" in the London papers, thereby placing New Zealand in an entirely false position. It would seem that the Christehurch agent of the Mail is a journalist holding no position of responsibility, but even if he did occupy one lie has no right to speak on behalf of New Zealand, whatever may be his own ideas. In point of fact, the New Zealand Press a s a whole, which is generally an accurate mirror of public thought, is singularly favorable towards Mr. Asquith and his colleagues over the manner in which they are discharging their great responsibilities in these grave and trying times, and it is not right that, an impression should go abroad that the people here are dissatisfied with the conduct of the war and possess no confidence in the Prime, Minister. The Government should at once take action and inform the British public of the actual feeling of the -people here, which is one of gratitude and admiration. The work of the Empire's statesmen would be rendered Jess difficult if more of the yapping, snarling Northeliffe journalistic hounds were treated as the London Globe was the other day—suppressed.: not temporarily, but until the war is over. They have long since passed the bounds of liberty and decency; they arc out to harry, not to help; to misrepresent, not to represent facts; to achieve their own selfish, puny ends, no matter the consequences to the nation. They have made themselves Intolerable nuisances, and when all minds are centred on the best way of winning the war and are assisting and making sacrifices to that end, these journalistic j mischief-makers would be better right out of the way until victory is assured.