The Globe. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1524, 6 January 1879, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1879.

Tub duties of tho independent journalist of New Zealand may not inaptly be likened to the labors of Cadmus, a Prince of Phoenicia, who nourished a long while before the invention of the steam engine or the introduction of patent harvesters into Canterbury. This historical personage undertook to kill a dragon which had devoured his companions, and found tho task somewhat protracted, on account of the monster shedding its teeth that, sown in the earth, sprung up in the shape of bands of armed men. Even so. metaphorically, it is with the newspaper writer who attempts to expose the gross malversation of the present Government. He attacks an abuse one day and hopes for rest, but ere the ink upon his paper dries, telegrams or exchanges inforrn him of a dozon other instances of the misuse of their power by the rulers of the people, and the scribe must perforce continue his works of exposure, or by his silonco tacitly admit his inability or disinclination to honestly fulfil the functions of his office. On Saturday our remarks anent the land transactions of the Ministry were scarce concluded when the news was wired of some additional tampering with the Telegraph Department, to the detriment of the public interest and absolute loss to the revonue of the country. Tho message, as it reached us from a most reliable source, stated that Sir George Grey's speech, delivered on Saturday night at Thames, was telegraphed to the Ministerial organ at Wellington on Sunday, that at tho ordinary Sunday rates, the message cost eighty pounds, but that this was subsequently reduced to twenty pounds, If

this is a fact, and we have not the least reason to doubt the authenticity of our information, then a more barefaced appropriation of tho public revenue for party purposes has never been perpetrated in New Zealand since the discovery of the islands by Captain Cook. The telegraphic department is a public institution : the people support it, make good all lossos that may accrue to the working of it, and, so doing, have every right to enjoy to the fullest extent the profits that may attach to the working of the same. Hitherto this department has been well managed and fairly remunerative, and its avails have assisted to lighten the losses incurred in other unproductive branches of the public service; but this promises to be altered under tho Grey regime ; the profits, instead of indirectly lightening the burden of taxation the people boar, are to be devoted to subsidising certain newspapers, who will repay the favour rendered by performing the wing functions of the vampire bat, in fanning their subscribers to sleep while their rulers bleed thorn. To prevent the use as much as possible of the telegraphic lines on Sunday, and also to allow the employes of the department to keep the Sabbath, extra rates for the transmission of messages are fixed, and, so far as the general public is concerned, these regulations are rigorously carried out. If, for instance, a poor man's child | was dangerously ill at Christchurch, and he wished to telegraph for medical advice to "Wellington, unless that man could pay the extra charge to the uttermost farthing his child might die, but when a subsidised newspaper wishes to publish a speciallyprepared account of the childish harangue of a Minister of the Crown the case is very different; tho Sabbath may be broken, the clerks of the department over-! worked, and in return the journal benefitted may pay just what its proprietor thinks fit, or, declining to pay at all, may get tho garbled account —written by a public servant —at the public cost. Of course any deficiency in the revenue that may arise from this extreme generosity can be made up by the imposition of fresh taxation, and thus the public pay, in two instalments, for the Government papers—fii'st directly in coin, secondly indirectly in duties on land, boots, property, or anything else the very economical administration of the Grey party requires to tax for the benefit of future generations and the general well-being of the human race. Of course the unfair reduction in rates that has called forth this comment was not confined to the New Zealander ; every subsidised journal throughout the colony shared the advantage. It is only newspapers that dare defend the rights of the public and depict the wrong doing of the ruling powers fearlessly and truthfully, that are compelled to pay full current rates for the transmission of messages on Sundays.