The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1890. OUR ANNIVERSARY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2140, 20 December 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1890. OUR ANNIVERSARY.

With this issue we begin our tenth year in Temuka. It is just nine years to-day since we entered into possession of the Temuka Leadeb, and ib will soon be eight years since we established the Gebaldine Gttabdian in connection with it. There can be no doubt but that it is to the Geealdine Guabdian we owe our sugcoss, humble though it may be. Without the assistance of the Gttabdiah it would not have been possible to keep the Leadeb in existence, at any rate in such a healty condition as it is in at preset. Neither could the Gtjaedian exist without the Leadeb. They are both like the Siamese Twins, essential to each others's well-being, and if one were to die the other could not survive such a melancholy occurrence, ihe reason is because neither town is large enough to support a paper of its own, but by both being combined together, and a great deal of labor and expense thus saved, the two papers are able to lire. At the lowest calculation, and cutting everything down as fine as possible, both papers could not be produced aa they are produced at present for less than £2O a week, and even that would leave no profit to the proprietor. One ef the papers could not be produced for much less than that sum, and when this is considered it will soon be realised that £lB or £2O a week is too much to expect from any one of the two towns, People have extraordinary ideas concerning newspapers. They think that because they can buy a paper for a penny it must take very little to get ic up. This is not so. Take, for instance, the Lyttelton Times, which is sold tor one penny. It would cost at least £3O to print one copy of it, and so on with other papers. Every little letter, and every little comma, full stop, and so on, must be picked up separately, and grouped together into intelligible combinations by skilled hands, and after this is done there are other processes through which they must go before they are impressed on the sheet of paper which tells the current news of the world, And great is the care that must be exercised in the performance of this work, A carpenter may spoil a piece of timber, but he can throw it away, and work up another and no one is the wiser ; a clerk may make an error in calculation, but he can rectify it. Anyone can correct his mistakes without people knowing it except the printer. If he makes a mistake all his readers know it, and they wonder at his stupidity for making Buch silly blunders. They never think how easy it is to make a slip where tens of thousands of minute little letters are being manipulated, and that once the paper is printed no correction is possible. People have frequently suggested to us that we should bring the paper out daily. Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to do so. Indeed it is one of the dearest wishes of our life to be able to control a daily paper, but if we were to do bo it would mean pretty well double the present expense, an<? we cannot see where the money is to come from. It would be a very poor daily paper indeed that we could produce for much less than £4O a week, and it is not everywhere that sum is to be picked np, We can give no hops of being able to run a daily < paper for many a year, and all we can promise is to maintain the present standard, and if possible improve it. It is our present intention to procure new type, and slightly increase the size of the sheet, and probably effect improvements in other direction?. But even as it is we claim that the paper is useful to the district, AH the district news is carefully reported. No one has in nine years complained that we published " cooked" reports of anything, and no one will, if we can possibly avoid it in the future. In that respect we do our level best, carefully and honestly. Friend and foe receive fair play. Then both papers provide a splendid and cheap medium of advertising. All advertisements appear in the two papers, and the cost is lees than is usually charged for one paper. That, too, is a great advantage to advertisers. As regards the opinions expressed in the leading columns, we do not expect that they please everybody. All we desire to say is that they are dictated by a 1 strong desire to do as much good in the world as possible. No &ne can say, at any rate, that we have ever ' truckled to the rich and powerful, neither can it be said that we have been afraid to speak the truth. We do not say we have been always right, ' but this we can say: we have never been knowingly wrong. On the whole we have tried to do "our duty fairly J and honestly, and ifc is our determina , tion to continue thej same line of ! action in the future, ) u

POLITICS,

Thg political situation appears to be considerably mixed up. The first impression after the result of the elections was made known was that Ministers were badly beaten. T}hey admitted this themselves, but set about shuffling the cards afresh to see what could possibly be made of them. There were ten or twelve Independent members, and the great question was, how will they voto ? Experience had , taught the Atkinsonians that Independent members mq chiefly jneuj

who manage to get into Parliament under false pretences. They talk very Liberal, but do not like the Liberal leader: they do not want to be bound to any party, they want to be fqee lances, and so on. All this means that they are wolves in sheep'* clothing, and the moment they get in they throw off the sheep's clothing and become real, live wolves, without the slightest disguise. This experience of course led the Ministers to hope that a reconstruction would give a loop-hole to Independent members to take the Government side. 'A here can be no doubt but that Ministers were justified in anticipating such a result, whether matters turn out as they expect or not. The blame cannot now be laid at the door of Ministers; the people to blame are the electors o£ this colony, who vote for Independent members. The Independent members are now at the bottom of the whole muddle, and they will keep Parliament in a state of muddle for the next three years. But though the Ministry have, we think, a perfect right to test their strength before retiring from office, they should not have delayed the matter so long as they have delayed it. Behind this delay we feel certain that there is trickery and fraud, and the object is to buy over in the meantime a sufficient number of the Independent members to give the Government a majority. This is the way Government is carried on, and of course there is no help for it, as our electors are so idiotic as to vote for Independent members.