MINISTERIAL TELEGRAMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1521, 1 August 1905, Page 2

MINISTERIAL TELEGRAMS.

THE MEMO SYSTEM.

Per Press Association-.

Christchurch, last night.; , Regarding Sir Joseph Ward’s reported statement as to the right of members to send full telegraphic memos for domestic purposes that hG said had been in exist- : ence since 1879, Sir John Hall, whose Ministry assumed office in that year, gave a representative of tho Press information as to the practice of Ministers with regard to private telegrams and memos. The system, he stated, was introduced whilst he was in office, but it applied only to official telegrams sent on public business. Previously the [practice had been that Government telegrams wore kept filed at the telegraph office in the same way as ordinary telegrams sent by the public were kept, but under the memo system the telegrams were returned to the department from .which they emanated, and were either destroyed or placed on the departmental file if it was deemed advisable. One reason for making the change was that Government telegrams were sometimes of .. a highly confidential character, and it was desirable that they should be destroyed and not kept on record. He himself, and so far as he knew none of his colleagues, bad sent domestic telegrams on the memo system. . On one occasion, at the end of .a telegram on official business to one of his colleagoes, he had asked him to dine with him, and it had troubled his conscience for some time after as to whether he ought to have done this.