A GRAVE SCANDAL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1304, 6 December 1911, Page 6

A GRAVE SCANDAL.

Yesterday we discovered by accident that the Postal authorities had takcu it on. themselves to delay the distribution through the post of a substantial section of the special election issue of The Domxiox. That' issue, our readers will recall, contained a review of mas?- of the acts of maladministration of the Ward Government during recent years and the indictment of the Ministry was one which should damn them in the eyes of nil honest citizens. Between 1)0,000 and 40,000 copies of the issue were sent to the Post Office for distribution and in order to meet the convenience of the Postal officials and make their task as light as possible, the postages were spread over three days—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last. Now wo learn that a section of the Friday issue has not been •delivered by the Postal Department, the reason alleged being that it.contained an .advertisement relating to the No-License poll which the Postal Department claims cannot be distributed within three days of the poll. What right has the Postal Department to refuse to deliver a daily newspaper oven though the newspaper may.commit a breach of the law? If a breach of the law has been committed it is the business of the Postal Department to direct attention to it and to have the paper prosecuted. It has no right to delay the_ delivery of postal matter placed in its hands for immediate delivery except in such special cases as indecent publications and gaming communications specially provided for under the Postal laws. But what will the public think of a Department which, on the eve of a general election, holds back a large portion of a special election edition of a daily newspaper without notifying the journal in question of its action until it js too late to overcome the objection raised? The Department knew what the paper contained on Friday last-it notified its officials in the outlying districts on Saturday —but it was not until we learned oi it by accident yesterday and pressed the Postal officials for information on the subject that we heard from them what had been done. It is a scandal and disgrace to the Postal Department of which the Prime Minister is the head that such a stale of things should be possible. To make the position worse wo were informed at a late hour last night that a portion of the election issue sent to ralmcrston North and posted at Wellington on Friday last for dispatch by the early morning train on Saturday did not reach I'almrnion until Mandatj morniny. Had it reached Palmerston on Saturday— as it should have done—the three days objection raised by the Postal officials would not have existed. But the extraordinary and absolutely unjustifiable delay alleged to 'have taken place in tho forwarding of the papers by the Postal Department brought it within tho three days' limit, and we are informed a large number of last Friday's papers are now lying in the Palmerston North Post Office undelivered. It is very significant that the Postal authorities'should have become eo zealous on the present occasion .'when the

Government, is in jeopardy and Ibc election issue of a journal containing matter strongly condemnatory of the Government is the publication most affected. We doubt very much, however, whether the incident will profit the. Government. If the Postal Department is open to the suspicion that it may be used as a political engine of the party in power then the time has indeed arrived when the control of the country's affairs should he placed in other hands. We shall have more to say on this subject when the investiga-tions-which we have set afoot are completed.