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54. Do you think that any person starting a newspaper there would receive value for the £500 demanded there?—l do not see where he could get it. 55. I suppose that a newspaper started in Hastings would have a very hard fight to make good this large sum for entrance-fee ?—A very hard one indeed. 56. They may have refused owing to its proximity to a newspaper that was already a member of the Press Association ?—Yes. 57. Is it your experience that a larger sum has to be paid within a certain radius of a town where a newspaper is published?— They might have a desire to protect a customer who was already connected with them. 58. Is it your experience that most people prefer the town journal to the local country journal ?—Up to a certain point that may be so; but they generally prefer the local paper for its local news and its attention to local wants. 59. Mr. Hogg.] You say you have the management of the Haivera Post ? —I have become the lessee, with a purchasing clause. 60. Is that a large place ? —The town now contains about eighteen hundred inhabitants ; it is in the centre of a large fertile district. 61. Is this morning paper the only newspaper in the town ?—No; there is the Hawera Star, an evening paper, also started by myself and Mr. Innes in 1880; but I had to sell out owing to insomnia. 62. Is the Star connected with the Association ?—Yes. 63. Do you think that not receiving the cablegrams puts you at considerable disadvantage as a competitor?— Yes; very considerable. 64. You have had a lot of experience of country newspapers, I believe ? —Yes, a good deal. 65. Can you say how much money would be required to start a small country office ?—ln a place like Hawera, from £500 to £1,000. 66. Then, an entrance-fee of £250 would represent a half to one-fourth of the capital that would be necessary ? —Yes. 67. Do you know anything of the working of this Association ? —I know nothing of the internal working .of the Association. In all the time I have known it I have never been able to find out anything about its internal working. From all with whom I have conversed on the subject I have not been able to discover how the Association is worked. I only know that they have their meetings once a year, and I know that Mr. E. W. Knowles is the president of it. That is all I know on the subject. But I have been away from the colony for some years. 68. Who have been the directors, do you know ? —Mr. Brett, of Auckland. I believe the late Mr. Henry Blundell, of Wellington, was a member. Mr. Fenwick, of Dunedin, used to be another ; the others Ido not know. I believe that Mr. Knowles has been a director for a long time. 69. The directors are simply the representatives of the old wealthy metropolitan papers ?— That is so. I never heard of a country journalist being on it in any shape or form. 70. Then, the country newspapers know nothing of the working of the Association, or for what objects they are contributing their money ? —Nothing whatever. 71. Did you ever see a balance-sheet ?—No ; during the time I was publishing the Hawera Star or Opunake Courier I never saw a balance-sheet, and I never saw a report. 72. - You say you are willing to contribute the fees demanded of you : do you think that is a satisfactory system under which you may be called upon to pay any fee demanded of you ?—I meant for wire-charges only. 73. I presume you would have to contribute so much a quarter. As a contributor, would you have any control over the fees so as to get them modified ? —You must accept the tariff laid down. There is no means of modifying it that I know of. 74. You do not know whether these fees are necessary or not ?■ —I presume they are, but I do not know whether they are or not. 74a. You cannot tell us anything as to the profits of the Association ? —No ; I have no information on that point. 75. Then, you have contributed money, and you do not know what has become of it : how is that explained?— That is so; but I might perhaps state that when I first started the llawera Star with Mr. Innes we had a special correspondent at the military camp. The district was in a disturbed state. The news most in request was news from the camp. I received a letter from Mr. Gillon, the general manager at that time, asking why I did not send on to him the news from the camp. We paid between £40 and £50 a year to get this news —I am not sure now whether it was £40 or £50 it cost us. Mr. Gillcn insisted that I should send on to him this news, although we paid that sum specially for it. I protested against that. Two or three letters passed between us. I protested again that if he wanted this news he should bear the expense of obtaining it. We sometimes got the news by special messenger and sometimes by post. Mr. Gillon said that if we wanted anything of that kind we should make a formal application for it, and he would lay it before the directors. Ido not know whether it was obtained afterwards from those who paid for special news, but I never got a single penny for that £40 or £50. 76. Your complaint is that the Association threatened to cut you off from its service unless you supplied them with that information which you had to pay £40 or £50 for ? —Yes. 77. Is that one of the rules of the Association —that such information has to be forwarded to them ?—Mr. Gillon said so. 78. You stated that you had had experience in Victoria: was that in the country parts or in Melbourne ?—Two years of it was in Melbourne. 79. Can you tell us what is the practice there ? —lt is entirely different there. I did not publish any cables at Yea. 80. Did you not receive them ?—At the Wangaratta Chronicle sometimes we got them.