TELEGRAMS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1136, 26 December 1873, Page 4

TELEGRAMS.

[westport evening star.] TnE marked increase in the business of the New Zealand Telegraph department, as shown by recently published returns, may be accepted as the best proof positive of the increasing activity of the colony. All the world over briskness of trade impels a greater activity on the wires, and, as well put by a recent wiiter on the subject:— •* Noticeablo as this feature is, aud generally accurate as it also is as a means of comparison, the

relative character of the eolonie3 is thus made pre-eminently conspicuous by their telegraphic returns. Those, which lead the van in the race for progress are distinguished by the very large amount of telegraphic business they transact; while those which may with some degree of truth be termed as "behind the age" and drag out a lethargic existence, are those which have failed to appreciate the real economy induced by a liberal use of the electric wire. Victoria and New Zealand are as bright examples of the one class as Tasmania is a remarkable

instance of the other." Apart from the constantly increasing use of the wires for commercial purposes the trausit of Press telegrams indicates intimate relation between the telegraph department and the real or fancied requirements of the colony. It has been of late asserted that no newspaper of average status published in Great Britain presents to its readers the .amount of telegraphic news found in the columns of the New Zealand press. The accuracy of this assertion is open to question, but still, there is one thing very certain, the New Zealand public get a considerable amount of telegraphic news good, bad, and indifferent, at an expense to newspaper proprietors out of all proportion to their subscription lists, but this can scarcely be avoided. New Zealand is a colony of scattered communities, of isolated settlements, of extensive sea board, and almost inaccessible interior, save by the potent agency of the wires. At all points where men congregate, whether in commercial centres or at the outposts of pioneer settlement, there is a constant craving for news. It matters little as to quality. Inconsequential, superflous, or of general import 'tis all the same. Headers will be always be found craving for news of any kind, that will serve for momentary beguilement. Thus it eventuates that much, so called, telegraphic news is daily flashed from station to station in New Zealand

that really is but as the chronicles of very small beer indeed, and the exacting subscriber of a weekly dole to his local press who, with chronic growl, declares there is " nothing in the papers," is by his craving for telegraphic news, accountable to a very great extent for more readable and useful matter being often excluded.