THE PRESS OF NEW ZEALAND. (From the Wellington Independent, July 29.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVI, Issue 1242, 9 August 1859, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PRESS OF NEW ZEALAND. (From the Wellington Independent, July 29.)

The division of New Zealand into Six Separate Provinces is the great blot of our Constitution. Six distinct political organizations within the limits of a ; single Colony ! Six distinct and often contradictory j codes of laws— six set of Land Regulations. Six ', legislative bodies , six Superintendents, each believing himself equal with the Governor ! To get rid of this hurtful anomaly, to abolish multiplicity of jurisdiction, to compel uniformity of laws, to equalize the ralio of provincial progress, retarding the advancement of the more energetic to the pace of the more feeble, has been the aim and object of the-present ministry. And not with out success. A beautiful uniformity begins to prevail, delightful to contemplate with the eyes of a centralist. If in any instance the General Government appears rather to have multiplied divisions, as in the case of the New Provinces Act, such multiplication has been only apparent and not real— the great aim has been kept steadily in view of .weakening the separate political 01ganizations, and 'reducing all under the common control of the Central powerf So far well ; but one source of incongruity yet exists with which the General Government has not been able to grapple, we mean the diversities of the press. In every province there exists at least one, in most several public journals, advocating opinions altogether irreconcilable; altogether witnout uniformity ; clashing not only as between separate provinces, but as between several papers in each province ; and producing a state of intellectual -conflict horrible to a mind well regulated and in conformity with the principles of centralism and order. For our part we see no remedy for this prolific evil, except the establishment of a censorship of the press. Under the control of such a department, uniformity of opinion might quickly be restored. Wellington and Auckland might be brought to harmonise— the ink of the 'Southern Cross' might be employed in compliments to the •New Zealander' — the 'lndependent' might be filled with the praises of Stafford, and the 'Lyttelton Times' venture to give vent to its opinions in a leading article.- Political lions, like the editor of the 'Spectator,' might bo found lying down with political lambs like ourselves — and the ploughshares with which we have perhaps too rudely cultivated the field of politics might be turned into ivory handled pruning hocks, such as those used by the greatest editor of the 'Nelson Examiner.' What a nice thing it would be under those circumstances to be a member of the Ministry. The snobberies of Stafford would no more be exposed. Sewell might combine as many offices in the Executive with as many seats in Steam Directories as he pleased. Richmond's boastful speeches at Taranaki taverns would go uncriticized— Tancred would not be ridiculed as a goose, nor Whitaker held up to public contempt as a small souled quibbling attorney. But above all, the office of 'Censor would afford a substantial piece of patronage to a government which has pretty well exhausted its ingenuity in the art of creating new berths to reward dependents or silence opponents ; and it would be precisely the style ol thing, with a salary of say £800 a year, with which to bind in chains of gratitude some backstairs supporter, "some cunning cogging and insinuating knave," of whom we have no doubt it has many about it thoroughly qualified for the duties of the office. Contrast- such a state of things with that -which exists at present. With a population not equal to that of a tlbrd-rate English town— not so large as that of a Jjondorf, parish, we have no fewer than seventeen newspapers : 4 at Auckland, 2 at Taranaki, 3' at Wellington-, 1«t Wanganui, 1 atJHawke's 'Bay, 2 at Nelson, 2 at Canterbury, and 2 at Otago. &jid what to one of those organs of opinion is black, th« same is white to another ; what one states as a fac*, another brands as a falsehood ; what one propounds as a nanacea, another denounces as a malig- \ nant poison. It splits one's head to read these intellectual antagonists. A stranger reaching the colony in dne of Sew^ell's well subsidised steamships, going the round of the several provinces, seeking for information as he travels along, and thinking to , glean it.frora columns of the papers, goodness, -what a- state of brain-rac king confusion will his ideas be in by the time he has consulted the seventeen journals. But with a well-regulated press, under the control of an* intelligent censor, such a man as Tancred for instance, who has studied in person the institutions of Austria, how different would all this be ! The same sentiments which met his eye in the columns of the first paper he might see, would be those which he would encounter wherever he went. If the 'Nelson Examiner' told him that Stafford was an eminent statesman, he would find the opinion echoed in the 'Otago Colonist ;if at Auckland he found the 'New Zealander' proclaiming Thomas Gore Browne as the model Governor, at Wanganui he would find the 'Chronicle' of exactly the same opinion. If at Lyttelton or Christchurch he found Sewell whitewashed, at Wellington he would lead of him as the most disinterested of mortals, the most immaculate of statesmen, and the first of financiers. It would add immensely to the efficiency of the system if the existing newspapers were subsidised by the government, and a monopoly guaranteed to them for say 60 years. Nor do we see that there would be any harm in allowing the Censor to have a direct interest — as a shareholder, for instance, but not with a seat in the Directory— in any paper with which he might choose to connect himself, lie might make it well worth the while of the public journals to give him a pecuniary interest in their success ; and the government might even, if necessary, advance through him public money, by way of loan*, to any journals in which he was interested, and which might be in necessitous circumstances. j Of the papers at present produced in the Colony a brief account may not be uninteresting. « First, at Auckland— the largest paper, and, we believe, with the largest circulation of any in the colony, is the 'New Zealander.' It is published biweekly. Edited by a party who has been connected with the peany-a-line department of the English press, its literary ability is beneath contempt. A few of the cant phrases of modern journalism, and a talent for personal abuse, are the chief indications of its idtosyncracy. Its politics are ministerial and of Government House ; thorough going, indiscriminate, emulous of the entire animal. In other respects, the paper, as a matter of business, is well got up— plenty of shipping news, market prices, reports in police courts, shocking accidents, English extracts, and all the rest of it. -Enough for the money, in quantity at all events. The rival of th« 'New-Zealander is the 'Southern Cross,' also bi-weekly. Edited by a Cambridge g-shoTar, the growth of whose mind seems to have stopped short when he left the University ; a pedant to the back bone. Arguments framed like those with which Squire Thornhi 1 posed honest Moses ; the naked machinery of his logic paraded to astonish the unlearned reader. Quotations from Shakespere alternating with scraps from Dante, while an article on finance will be stuffed full of Horace or Euripedes. All addressed to men whose talk is of bullocks. Aiming to be witty he dee*ms his end attained if he succeeds in being epigriammatic ; but though occasionally not without point, the intention to make a point is so apparent that it always fails. We know few writers whose productions carry the reader so little along with them. We feel glad to get out of school and quickly forget a lesson taught with so much self love in the teacher, so little feeling ?or the learner. Personal vanity breaks out at every turn. He letely assured his readers that the •Cross' "had the credit of never making a mistake." At all events its Editor has made one ; and that in our opinion was when he became politician and editor in a new country like this; the necessities of which his previous training and natural sympathies have entirely disqualified him from comprehending. Politics, entirely at the service of the Stafford ministry, with an affected air of independence, which practically always ends in smoke. Paper, not otherwise very well got up— and generally second rate in tons and appearance. Circulation far short of the ♦.New- Zealander. These two had the Auckland field to themßelves till very lately— when a new print the ' Examiner,' published once a week, stepped in. * The 'NewZealander' treats it with silence, and summary con tempt— the ' Cross' notices it but thinks it hoi rid ungentecl. The 'Examiner' cries "a plague on both your houses" and walks into both with right good will. There are passages in it, we admit, particularly in its lengthy notices ' to correspondents/ a "leetle" too strong for "small tea parties" ; but we will say this, that it speaks out without fear or favour, and lays on as if it meant it. The Editor, whoever he be, has his heart in his work. He sh«ws a good deal of general reading—writes much

better than either the ' Cross' or the 'New-Zealsnder' j — and fears no man. We hove learnt many things from the 'Examiner' which the other two had careiully concealed, but which ought to be known Perhaps the brusquerie and want of regard for small conventionalities of speech were assumed— it is certainly not so " broad" as it was at first, and if -it continues to exhibit the real talent it possesses, while it avoids the faults it not un frequently csmmits, it cannot fail to take high place among the journals of the colony. Politics, (what the 'Cross' pretends to be) really independent— guerilla war— and no compromise. The other Auckland paper, the 'Register,' is also a weekly publication, and very " weakly." With three other papers on a much more pretentious scale in the same City, we can hardly understand the existence of this little washy sheet. It seems to be the organ of no opinion, and is too small to be of waste paper value. Surely it cannot pay. Certainly it does not instruct. What can be the object of such a publication? The copy before us however is some months old. We suspect it has found an early grave and it among the things that were. Then Taranaki with its population of 2,000 souls has its two journals, its ' Herald' and its ' News,' taking no doubt opposite sides on the great questions which from time to time convulse the province of New Plymouth. The ' News' is the larger paper and seems the better done— but why have two opinions at Taranaki ? Why not leave it to the Censor to say which is right and rule out the other r Then Wanganui must have its organ, the 'Chroni cle'— Wanganui not even a Province of itself, but a mere off shoot of Wellington. Yes," this upstart little place dares to mnintain a printing press, canvasses Governor Browne, criticizes Commissioner M'Lean, has its fling at Stafford, and claps Featherston on the back. Before long, no doubt, there will be a rival press, a 'Wanganui Standard,' or something of the sort, still further decentralizing public opinion and confusing the public mind. Said we not well when we declared for a Censor ? At Wellington there are three of us— three as bitterly opposed as we can be. Fiist, there is the 'Spectator, which hates us worse than poison, and though we are perpetually forgiving it, it hates us all the more. Ojiginally it belonged to a Committee of Settle.rs, and stood on the liberal side, but its present proprietor having got independent of the Committee, sold the cause and threw himself and paper into the hands of Sir George Grey. For years it was the organ of opposition to self-govern-ment, then it became the mouth-piece of the Rowdy party who professed ultra-radical opinions— now there is a split among them, and it confines itself chiefly to personal abuse of Dr. Featherston and his colleagues in the Provincial Government. It supports the orthodox parsons— and the orthodox parsons in mum support it. It is edited generally by its proprietor, formerly an assistant-surveyor in the New Zealand Company's service, but occasionally by, a cleik in a department of the General Government. It is well printed and neatly got up, but exercises very little influence either in the Province or out of it. The ' Advertiser 1 is quite a recent enterprise— said to be established by the surplus funds of an " eminent merchant," whose money was a burden to him, and who was ambitious of having a journal of his own, and an editor who knew how to aspirate his H's. At present it gives away 2000 copies— or professes to do it— an artifice which may obtain it a circulation which it will hardly keep, unless it secures better literary and editorial talent to raise it to a higher standard. For ourselves we are what you see, kind reader. We try to speak the truth, and. speak plainly. By so doing we make, many enemies, for men will forgive your saying of them anything but the truth. Others object not to what we say, but how we say it. We admit we have not had the advantage of that " penny more," which the editor of the • Nelson Examiner's' parents paid to teach him manners — nor have we been taught "to caper nimbly in a lady's chamber." We look on politics, not as an amusement for our leisure hours, not as a trade whereby to put money in our purse— not as an arena on which we may display our abilities— not as I an occasion for the interchange of courtesies between carpet knights— but as a hand-to-hand fight between believers In opposite political creeds, as a great and solemn duty which admits of no compromise, and into the performance of which the man who undertakes it should throw his whole energies, his heart and soul. If in doing so we offend many, yet we make friends of more; and, in the noble words of Sir Philip Sydney, which an Auckland contemporary has taken as his motto, we feel that " though we be extinguished, yet there'll rise a thousand beacons from the spark I bore." We know that the hard truths which we, perhaps, too roughly enunciate, have berne and will bear fruit; and that though we ourselve* may not share in the harvest, a harvest there will be. Our politics are too well known to require much to be said. We think Stafford a great statesman and an unequalled orator. Sewell, the most able of financiers, an admirable witness before a Committee of" the Commons, a wonderful hand at raising a loan, and powerful at getting up the steam. Richmond we admire for his liberal sentiments, his hostility to old feudal notions, his modesty, and his sympathies with popular progress. WhiUker for his prudence, for his freedom from the narrow prejudices of his profession, and his abhorrence of its trickery and cunning. While Tancred we regaid as the man of a thousand, in short, the " coming man," if he be not come already, who combines the far-seeing wisdom of a great legislator with the ready aptitude of | a great administrator. Butve must cut short our remarks. At Nelson there is the ' Examiner,' once the champion of popular liberty and self-government j jf\ow a run-holder's advocate and organ of centralism, edited by the most nomineeish of Sir George Grey's nominees. It is a renegade print — and of course a good stickler for the propieties. It is opposed by the ' Colonist,' an organ of provincialism, the small farmer and the working man ; an outspoken paper, edited with considerable talent, and apparently honest in its convictions. The ' Lyttelton Times,' and •• Canterbury Standard,' we must except from the category of those journals whose conflicting opinions may confuss the mind of the enquiring traveller ; for-whatever opinions they have they sedulously conceal, and keep in the dark — contenting themselves with English extracts, local. news, and now and then, the former at least, with some wonderful discovery in the science of political economy. The number of advertisements contained in them is worthy of note, an indication of a lively sense, on the part of the Pilgrims^ of the value of printers' ink in a commercial, if not an intellectual point of view. The ' Otago Witness* does war to the knife with ihe ' Otago Colouist' : the former a somewhat lougwinded and vicious-minded paper— the latter one of the best and most ably got up journals of the Colony. Last of all, to close the list, comes the ' H awkes Bay Herald,' organ of Thomas Fitzgerald, and skilful lever by whose active agency that woithy individual grftased the wheels of the chariot in which he rode triumphant " into a seat intended for better men."