Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] FRIDAY, JULY. 27, 1894. A GIGANTIC MONOPOLY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4784, 27 July 1894, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1878.] FRIDAY, JULY. 27, 1894. A GIGANTIC MONOPOLY.

Wh are not surprised to leant that the Government printing office is to cost £25,438 this year as- against £24,428 last. Tho : Government printing office is a concern that is always going up while the poor private printing offices in the Empire City nre going dovw and filing their schedules.' What right lias any Government] and in this matter there has not been a pin to choose between Liberals and Conservatives, to go into trade and .injure private enterprise P All the work required by the .Government could be donons cheaply, and as well, by private firms as by its own monstrous establishment. For example, say that the writer is a master-printer, and could with advantage to himself and to bis employes do the local work required by the State, why should the State say to him: "We can run an opposition printing offices of our own, and all we have to do with you is to tax you and your business, to inspect you and collect registration fees from you." The taxed office has to compete with the great untaxed establishment of the Stnle. Perhaps tho present Government might answer "What care we for Master Printers, or masters of any kind ? The Working Man Is the master now!"- This is truo only.to a limited oxtcnt.for when Masters fail to thrive they have to dismiss hands, and this is how it comes to be that so many unemployed men are now in the Colony. The Working Men are Masters, but the non-Working Men, what are they ? Why, we repeat, should the State bo allowed to rob the printing or any other trade by setting up, a gigantic monopoly out of the public purse ? Again, what business has the State with twenty-five; thousand pounds worth of printing per annum, Twenty-five thousands pounds is an enormous sum of money, and probably no country in the'worldinproportion to population pays such a; ruinous printer's bill. If the' Govern: j ment printing were done by private] offices it would probably cost about half as much as it does now, hut; i suits a Ministry to have a small army of compositors at its beck apd call, and to flood its office with work in order to keep them going. Spnjotimes it has happened that people have not known whether-the Minisr try' rules' tho printing ofiflce or the printing office controls the Ministry, There is a good deal to be said on botli sides of the question, and a gigantic establishment like the one wo refer to is necessarily a political power, 'We.'qucstion whether. the wasto and extravagance in this department be riot greater than m any other department in the Empire city, If a Morgiana could but go

round the Government jars in Wellington, she would kve little diffi- 1 ciilty in. discovering the. "forty.! thieves'l who are playing the mjs-J chief Hvith the .ratepayers of thei Colony, and the lustiest rogue of the lot might possibly be concealed in that jar of the thirty-seven which bears the label of the Government Printing Office.