THE "EVENING POST"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1940, Page 10

THE "EVENING POST"

75TH ANNIVERSARY

For all but twenty-five of the hundred years of organised settlement in New Zealand, the "Evening P6st" has been published daily in Wellington. Thus its story is in large measure the story of the city which gave it birth; Wellington and "The Post" have marched together.

Today "The Post" celebrates its seventy-fifth birthday. For the proprietors of the paper and for the members of the staff the event is an occasion for satisfaction and pride. The path which the founder of "The Post," Mr. Henry. Blundell. and his three sons, Henry, John, and Louis, had to tread in those early days when the paper was printed in Ellers Lane, off Willis Street, and published from a small bookshop in Manners Street, was one beset by many difficulties, but enterprise and tenacity—above all, tenacity—brought their reward —slowly, it is true, but surely. The courage needed to publish a daily newspaper under the. conditions existing seventyfive years ago, when the population was small and when two tr'i-weekly papers and one bi-weekly paper were already in the field (and struggling for existence) may well be imagined. But Mr. Henry Blundell, who at that time was in partnership with Mr. D. Curie, had decided on a bold bid. and so, on February 8, 1865, the first issue of the "Evening Post" was sold on the streets, of Wellington.

A few months after its foundation, when Mr. Henry Blundell bought the interest of Mr. Curie, "The Post" became a family concern, and such it has remained ever since. Son has succeeded father on the directorate- In this way the ideals which inspired the founder have been maintained throughout the years, and there has been a strict adherence to the policy of independence which was laid down from the beginning.

In the seventy-five years of its existence "The Post" has seen New Zealand grow to nationhood and Wellington develop from little more than a village to a thriving, modern city, and in its pages it has recorded with remarkable detail, considering the limitations imposed by daily journalism, the march of stirring events which have led to that development. It is the true function of a newspaper to present in its news columns an impartial picture of current events, to give an opportunity for all opinions on public questions to be stated, and this "The Post" has always endeavoured to do. In its leading columns it has mah> tamed an independent outlook, not hesitating to criticise with vigour when it has felt criticism justified and timely, and bestowing praise when it has felt that praise was due. The late Sir Robert Stout once wrote: "In the late sixties and early seventies no other journal was so much quoted as the 'Evening Post'—it was known from one end of the colony to the other; it was the slave of no party; its articles were brilliantly written and highly critical. As a consequence it often displeased both the political parties in Parliament. Its keynote was, ever a judicious independence." The .policy of "The Post" is still one of "judicious independence."