MR SAVAGE’S PLANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1938, Page 5

MR SAVAGE’S PLANS

TALK WITH AUSTRALIAN INTERVIEWER LARGE PROGRAMME IN HAND AT LEAST FOUR NEWSPAPERS TO BE ESTABLISHED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. SYDNEY, October 17. The “Sun” publishes a radio talk with Mr Savage who, inter aha, stated: “We are just beginning to realise the full implications of the poll. We have a large programme for the continuation of what we have been doing in the past three years. “It all boils down to this: New Zealand is a country worth living in today, and this fact will keep people and capital here. So long as we get the necessary co-operation from the banks, their organisation will remain safe.” Mr Savage said he hoped to establish at least four newspapers, one in each of the main cities. During the election campaign, only one newspaper in a little West Coast town had fought for the Government. NOT A STATE PRESS SOMETHING THAT WILL BELONG TO LABOUR PRIME MINISTER EXPLAINS (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The views he expressed last week on the necessity for the establishment of a chain of newspapers in New Zealand to advocate the Labour policy were elucidated by the Prime Minister, in an interview last evening. Mr Savage said his remarks had been interpreted by some to mean that he had in mind a State Press. Actually, he wanted something that would belong to the Labour movement. “Whether we are the Government or not we want a means of publicity,” he said. It was a matter for Labour sympathisers, the Prime Minister added The Labour movement had to establish newspapers that would put forward a progressive point of view instead of the views put forward by a Press tied up to vested interests. He did not necessarily want a Press that would be crying “Labour” all the time. He wanted a Press that would put some reason into its articles. Mr Savage said that in a radio telephone conversation with the Melbourne “Herald” that day he had given some indication of the influence of the present Press in New Zealand by stating that Labour had secured an overwhelming majority of the votes cast in the face of the opposition of every newspaper in New Zealand with the exception of one small paper on the West Coast. “The one thing is that we have to get a Press,” Mr Savage said. "No Government goes very long without having a Press to support it, not only during election campaigns, but during its legislative work.”